Braided Lives

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the author or the publisher. Braided Lives TOP SHELF An imprint of Torquere Press Publishers PO Box 2545 Round Rock, TX 78680 Copyright 2011 AR Moler Cover illustration by Alessia Brio Published with permission ISBN: 978-1-61040-217-0 www.torquerepress.com All rights reserved, which includes the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever except as provided by the U.S. Copyright Law. For information address Torquere Press. Inc., PO Box 2545, Round Rock, TX 78680. First Torquere Press Printing: May 2011

Braided Lives

By A.R. Moler

March

"Dennis Espeleta's missing," said Bottman. "I just got word that he didn't make his check-in." Danny Valentine looked up from his computer to meet his boss's gaze. The news was disturbing. Dennis had been on assignment with the UN peacekeeping forces overseas assisting in tracking down some of the radical Serbian terrorist factions left in Kosovo. Espeleta was a counter-intelligence specialist with the CIA. He was also a telepath of moderate talent, which put him in the employ of Division P. "By how long?" Valentine asked. "Twelve hours. The UN people were trying to give him some wiggle room before they gave us the information," replied Bottman. "I've already started making calls. It may turn out to be a false alarm or miscommunication or some other minor issue. But I figured I should give you a heads up." Valentine nodded, his mind already scrambling to figure out what they could do to get their man back safe. "I'll keep you in the loop," Bottman continued. "Yeah, thanks. I'll start talking to our people and see who's available." Bottman departed and Valentine stared after him for a moment. Andrew Bottman was a medium height man in his mid-forties and the head of Division P. It was somehow perversely funny that the man who ran the United States government's highly secretive group of psychic operatives had no psychic Talent what so ever. The guy was as head-blind as a doorknob. The flipside was that Bottman had raised the art of networking and

favor swapping among the country's bigwigs to an art form. Chances were Danny was going to need a few of those favors to get their man home again, if the guy was even still alive. Valentine ran a mental checklist as he spent a moment stretching his well-muscled and over six foot tall form. One, they needed to figure out if Espeleta was still alive. That meant they needed a clairvoyant or a telepath who was good at distances. Two, if the guy was still alive, they needed a finder or maybe somebody with psychometry skills. Three, if he was injured, they would need a healer or at least somebody with medical skills who was privy to some of the odd problems that psi could manifest. There was the added problem of Espeleta being in Kosovo, so that racked up problems of needing passports and preferably military or combat experience. While it was true that Kosovo wasn't the out and out war zone of a decade ago, there were still a few hot spots and people who weren't willing to let go of old hatreds. Danny had been recruited by Division P for his odd mix of empathic skills, military experience and his more recent career with NCIS. After a single year of training and field agent work for P, he'd been thrust into the newly created position of Assistant Director of Field Operations. It was a real catch-all job, where he did everything from picking people for assignments to debriefing, along with "hair-on-fire" FUBAR disaster management and clean-up, and juggling a little field command on top of it all. He started pulling up personnel files for Division P people, paying particular attention to those that were either active military or had been. ***

"I'll make sure Braithwaite has a full medical field kit," said Peter Vithoulkas. He was the senior psychic healer for Division P, a man of extraordinary talent. He sat at the conference table with Valentine, Bottman, Benford, and Pierce, working on mission plans for finding and retrieving Espeleta. Braithwaite was a corpsman for the army who had some healing talent. He'd been with Division P for less than a year. His advantage in this situation was having some combat experience. Peter himself had spent a decade as a corpsman in the Air Force before his own recruitment to Division P. Given the magnitude and value of his rare talent, Division P seldom sent him into the field. The staff was about to move on to discussion of which finder would be the best choice when an elderly man came into the room. Reed Sawyer was a seventy-five year old retired spook. He'd spent more than forty years in the CIA. "Sorry to butt in, but if you don't send Peter on this op one of our people will die," said Reed. The men in the room were eerily quiet. When Reed Sawyer talked, people listened. Sawyer was a precog of scarily accurate skill. True of anyone with the ability to glimpse the future, his information was often incomplete, and seldom responded on demand, but the man was almost never wrong. His prediction put a whole new spin on what might happen in trying to rescue Espeleta. "Okay, change in plans," said Bottman. "Peter, you're going to Kosovo." *** The white noise of the airplane engines was as good a mask as any for the conversations Valentine needed to

have with each of the men on his team. The MAC flight to Germany was nearly done and from there they would catch another plane to Pristina in Kosovo. There were five men, plus himself. Nightengale was a psychometric, Rayden was a finder, Claydon was a reasonably gifted telepath, and Tabano had a mix of empathic and clairvoyant skills. Then there was Vithoulkas. Of all the men, Danny knew Peter a little better than he knew the others, which wasn't actually saying all that much. Although they ran into each other around the Division P complex fairly regularly, there wasn't a lot of direct interaction in their jobs. A few minutes with each of the other men helped Danny to confirm that they were calm and in control and had some idea what they might expect on the mission to find Espeleta. Finally Danny sat down next to Peter. The healer was reading a paperback. "I don't suppose Reed had any last minute revelations for you?" asked Danny. "I wish. I haven't been out in the field in almost a year. Now I'm on my way to a demilitarized zone. Yeehah." "When we land in Germany at Landstahl, there's supposed to be updates on intel waiting for us. I'd like to say maybe Espeleta will have checked in and all we'll have to cope with is jet lag and wasted time." "I don't think we're going to get that lucky," commented Peter. "Me neither." *** After landing in Kosovo, the next phase of the journey involved a two hour ride in a pair of Hummers to a small town north of Urosevac. A unit of Army

peacekeeping forces was expecting the arrival of the Division P people and it took less than an hour for Valentine and his group to be briefed on the situation in the area. Active fighting was going on with a group of ex-patriot dissidents and at the moment that fighting seemed to involve a hell of a lot of gunfire and explosions. Danny Valentine paired Nightengale and Claydon, and himself with Rayden. Tabano, he left at the field command with Vithoulkas. The game plan was to send both teams out searching for some sign of Espeleta. No explanation was offered to the field command as to exactly how they were going about this. The late afternoon air was hazy with dust, and Danny followed along two to three steps behind Rayden, 9mm in his hand. Rayden was focused on what his finder skills might be telling him and Danny was watching the man's back. They spent a large chunk of the afternoon inching their way around heavily damaged buildings. Danny trusted in Rayden's psychic skill. Between Rayden and Nightengale, they ought to be able to find Espeleta, getting him out could conceivably be trickier. As they crept along a street, Danny suddenly felt the hard surge of anticipated satisfaction, and it wasn't from Rayden. Then he heard the dull thud of a rocket powered grenade being fired. He flung himself at Rayden, knocking him flat to the ground behind the partial shield of a burnt out car frame. The momentary whistle of the grenade passing overhead was immediately followed by the deafening roar of the explosion. A rain of dusty debris fell for several seconds and both men lay immobile as it settled. Danny blinked a number of times and shook his head, trying to clear the cobwebs. Beneath him, Rayden squirmed a little and Danny rolled off him. There was a

thread of pain somewhere and it took Danny another moment to realize it wasn't his own. Rayden sat up and leaned against the wrecked frame of the car. He was looking at a gash through the sleeve of his jacket. Blood seeped along his forearm, beginning to soak into the fabric. "Fuck, I think I landed on a piece of broken glass," Rayden said. His voice sounded tinny and far away, and Danny realized his ears were ringing from the blast. "Let me have a look." He examined Rayden's arm. There was a deep cut a couple of inches long and it was actively bleeding. "I think you're going to need some stitches. Let's head back and get you looked at." "You sure? It's not like I'm gonna bleed out or anything." "Yeah, I know, but it's going to distract you big time until we get the bleeding stopped, isn't it?" Rayden gave it a minute's consideration. "Yeah, it is apt to make it that much harder to focus." *** At the building being used as field command, Peter examined Rayden's arm and commenced cleaning the gash. The healer actively blocked the man's pain while he was digging several flecks of gravel out of the injury. A flicker of nausea from his patient caught his attention. When Peter looked up at Rayden's face, the man was pale. "You should probably look at something else; I don't want you passing out on me." Rayden gave him a weak smile. Peter returned to his task. Once the wound was clean, he trickled enough energy into Rayden's arm to stop the bleeding and tentatively seal the open gash. A

few steri-strips should hold it shut enough for Rayden's body to begin normal healing. "No stitches?" asked Rayden. "Nope, perk of being Division P." Peter gave Rayden a wink. "Valentine, you're next," he called over his shoulder. "I'm fine," said Danny. The tall field director was seated on a supply crate, where he had been keeping an eye on Rayden. "Then let me confirm that." Valentine gave him an irritated look. When Peter finished bandaging Rayden's arm, he said, "Try not to bang it around too much. If it starts bleeding again let me know." Rayden nodded and slid off the makeshift exam table. Peter turned and crooked a finger at Danny. The man hauled himself up from where he was seated and came toward Peter. "Sit," Peter ordered. "I'm fine. No blood, no broken bones." Peter clasped Danny's head gently between his hands and let his Talent roam Valentine's body. Finding nothing lethal, but a little definite damage, Peter asked, "How bad's the headache?" "It just hurts. It's no biggie." "On a scale of one to ten?" "Maybe three." "Did you lose consciousness when the explosion occurred?" Peter ran his fingers through Danny's close cropped blond hair, checking for any physical signs of head trauma. Danny frowned at him a little. "No." "You have ringing in your ears?" "Not now." "But you did?" pressed Peter.

"Yeah. It was freakin' loud. I've had worse from a good rock concert." Peter was slightly amused and let himself smile just a little. "You have a concussion. Not a bad one, but enough that I should probably do something about it." "Your kind of do something?" "Uh-huh, so just sit there and tip your head forward a little." Peter skimmed his fingers along Danny's temples. *** The wash of energy from Peter's hands was a tingling warmth and the headache immediately began to recede. Danny gazed at the floor between Peter's feet without really paying much attention. He hadn't realized just how much tension the pain in his head was creating in the rest of his muscles. It was tempting to roll his head and stretch out the back of his neck, but he figured that would disturb whatever Peter was doing. A thought was all it took apparently, because a few seconds later, Peter's hands were tilting his head to one side and kneading the tight muscles at the base of his skull. God, that felt better. Danny mentally kicked himself a little, remembering that healing was not Peter's only Talent. The man was a telepath too. Peter turned Danny's head toward the other side and worked at the stiffness on that side too. A thought flitted through Danny's head. Getting a massage from this man could likely be an event close to heavenly. Damn, he hadn't really meant to even think that. He didn't want to offend the guy. Danny let his own empathic talents brush along Peter's shields. There was very little to read, no anger, no revulsion, just a hint of internal laughter. "Okay, that should help, but I want to check you again in a few hours to make sure," said Peter.

***

Damn near all hell broke loose an hour later. A group of the Army soldiers clearing an area near the north end of the city got ambushed. A number of them were seriously wounded and Valentine, Rayden and Tabano immediately began to lend a hand getting them transported back to the field command. Peter dove in to help with the injured as soon as they were brought back. Valentine fretted. Nightengale and Claydon were still out searching for Espeleta. Their last radio contact indicated that they were safe and not in direct danger. Valentine still worried. It was an hour past sundown when Nightengale and Claydon made it back. They had eliminated some areas that Espeleta might be in, and had encountered one hint that might lead them in the correct direction. Operations were suspended until first light. It had been a rough day and Danny didn't want his people in any greater risk than absolutely necessary. He saw Peter sitting on the floor by the wall in the triage area. The man looked absolutely wiped out. Danny grabbed a water bottle and a power bar from a stack of supplies and crossed to where the healer sat. He squatted down next to Peter and put the water bottle in Peter's hand. "You okay?" Danny asked. Peter nodded and cracked open the bottle, chugging about half the contents. Danny noticed the fine tremor in the man's hands as he ate the power bar. He knew from personnel files that the healing Peter did came at a physical price, leaving exhaustion and plummeting blood glucose levels in its wake. "Which do you need worse, more food or sleep?" "Sleep."

"Come on then, I staked us out a spot in the back corner of this place, some room that probably used to be an office." He gave Peter a hand up. *** Rayden and Nightengale had already bedded down in the hallway outside the small room. The long space was lit by one battery powered lantern. Tabano and Claydon were unrolling their sleeping bags a little further down the corridor. Danny had another lantern dangling from his hand. Inside the office, there was a file cabinet and a beat-to-hell desk shoved in one corner. Danny had left their bedrolls and gear bags on the floor. Peter's movements were so shaky and uncoordinated that Danny immediately began to help him strip off his jacket and boots. As Peter crawled into the sleeping bag, laid his head on his rolled up jacket, and closed his eyes, Danny wondered if there was anything else he should do for the man. The team needed to keep the valuable medic in good shape for healing, especially with the foreboding prediction by Reed Sawyer. Danny shucked his own stuff and got into his sleeping bag, thumbing off the lantern and plunging the little room into darkness. *** Danny woke to warmth. In the chilliness of night, the front of his body was significantly warmer than the back. He opened his eyes, which turned out to be a pretty useless gesture, since all he could see was deep shadows. Another person was pressed fairly tightly against him, body heat seeping through the fabric of the

sleeping bag. Peter. The healer's head was tucked against Danny's chest, the relative ebb and flow of his breath warming Danny's shoulder. There was something both funny and slightly arousing about the way Peter was lying on him. Danny wondered if Peter would be embarrassed if he woke to find himself there and then realized the man against his chest was only half-asleep. "Sorry, I just wanted to touch someone who wasn't on the verge of dying," mumbled Peter. His voice was thick and Danny could sense the blend of exhaustion and raw emotion. Peter moved as if to pull away. "It's okay," whispered Danny. He snaked his arm out and wrapped it around Peter's body, holding the healer in place. If another psi needed a little human comfort, he could do that. The fact that he both liked and respected Peter made it that much easier. The gentle weight of Peter's leg on his groin however, initiated some urges that he tried very hard to squash. Danny doubted that the man would take very well to the idea that he might be the cause of those ideas. Danny jerked a little as warm lips pressed against his own. Peter was kissing him. It was soft and needy and so raw that Danny felt tears burning in his eyes. "Thank you," Peter whispered against his mouth, and there was essentially nothing more. Peter nestled a little more into the crook of Danny's shoulder and was still. Danny could feel the healer's body relaxing into the limp heaviness of sleep. He wasn't sure what the kiss actually meant, if it meant anything. Danny had finally acknowledged a few years ago that he was as likely to be attracted to a man as to a woman. It had been a revelation of mixed blessings. Working for Division P made the acceptance of that idea an easier event. P had the official stance that all adult consensual relationships

were acceptable, potentially even beneficial, regardless of gender. Psi in general were often loners, finding single life easier to cope with than trying to explain their unique problems. *** Squinting in the almost darkness at the dial of his watch, Peter saw that it was close to dawn. He could hear some people up and about, moving through the ramshackle building. Danny's arm was still loosely draped around him as the man slept. Much as Peter would like to continue to lie against the solid presence of his colleague, it would probably be better for both of them if he went ahead and got up. Peter eased gently away and unzipped his sleeping bag. Putting on his boots and jacket, he thought about the kiss. He hadn't really intended to do that. It had been half relief, half reflex. Earlier in the day, Peter had picked up on Danny's very less than straight heterosexual thought when Peter was working on his concussion and accompanying muscle tension. Peter had been curious and amused. He didn't really know Danny well enough to have the "which way do you swing" discussion. After the stressful evening of having a number of badly injured soldiers flowing under his hands as he used a mix of traditional first aid along with his psychic talent, Peter had felt desperate to touch someone who was at least pretty close to healthy. It seemed Danny had been a good choice. Maybe when they got out of this hell-hole the two of them should have a beer and talk. ***

"I need a medic!" Claydon screamed. Danny looked up to see the man carrying Nightengale's limp body slung over his shoulder as he almost staggered into the field command building. Danny launched to his feet at the same time as Peter raced toward the pair. Together they eased Nightengale down onto a makeshift exam table, laying him on his side. Blood was seeping from a thoroughly soaked field dressing applied to one side of his lower abdomen. The one on his back above the hip was equally soaked. "Get me plasma, saline and oxygen!" Peter shouted across the room to another corpsman. "Fuck, the wound goes all the way through. What the hell did this?" Danny grabbed Claydon by the shoulders. "Take a deep breath. Tell me what happened." "Jonas went into one of the buildings in our assigned area and I hung around outside for a moment 'cause I thought I might have seen some movement. I heard this crashing noise and went in looking for him. A whole bunch of the roof had collapsed. Jesus God, when I started trying to pull stuff off him… I guess he'd fallen on this piece of rebar. It went all the way through him and it was still part of the floor. God. Oh God, I had to pull him up off it, 'cause we thought the building was going to collapse. I spent a couple minutes trying to stop the bleeding, then I figured I needed to get him back here. Fucking hell, is he going to make it?" Danny glanced back at Peter who was bent over Nightengale, obviously doing his best to stabilize his patient. "I don't know," said Danny honestly. "Go grab something to drink and try to calm down." ***

The energy gushed from Peter's hands with the flow of a fire hose. Nightengale's vitals were crashing hard. Constrict the damaged blood vessels. Grab a hemostat, clamp the nicked artery. Boost the blood pressure. Peter could feel the sweat trickling down his spine. This was the event predicted by Reed. Here they were, in the field with limited surgical resources, and one of their people was critically injured. It would take some serious surgery to put Nightengale back together. In the meantime, Peter knew he was the next best thing to a walking miracle. "Dude, what'd you do? His blood pressure's leveling out a little," said the corpsman standing on the opposite side of Jonas's body. "It's classified. Hand me another hemostat. Get a second line going. How soon can we get an evac?" "I think the CO's already on the horn trying to get a chopper headed in our direction." "Good." Peter steadied his patient's heart rate, and managed to repair one of the minor vessels. Anything to slow the blood loss. Peter jerked as a hand touched his shoulder. He glanced sideways at Danny. "Rayden just radioed me. He and Tabano found Espeleta," said Danny. "Uh, is he alive?" "Yeah, banged up, dehydrated, kind of worse for wear, but capable of walking and talking." "Good. I'm not sure I could handle another patient right now," admitted Peter. "You take care of Jonas. Go with him when the chopper arrives. I'll wait on the rest of our people, and get us out as soon as we can. Any idea where they're likely to airlift Nightengale to?" The question was directed at the corpsman as much as Peter.

"Urosevac has the closest actual hospital. It might take thirty to forty minutes to get him there," replied the corpsman. "Anything I can do for you?" Danny asked Peter. "Yeah, actually there is. Go look in my field kit for a tube labeled glucose tablets. Can you feed me a few? I don't want to take my hands off Jonas." "Okay." Danny found the tablets and fed several to Peter, and held a water bottle for him to drink. "You're sweating big time. Is that okay?" "Yeah, it's kind of a side effect. If the helicopter takes longer than fifteen more minutes, I'm gonna need some more of those," said Peter. "Energy takes energy." "Yeah, there's only so many laws of physics I'm allowed to bend," said Peter grimly. He let himself have a little mental debate. How much additional help could he get from Danny? "If you stand behind me and make sure I don't fall on my ass, I can focus close to a hundred percent on trying to slow the bleeding." He noticed the corpsman gave him a really strange look. Peter didn't care. "I can do that." Danny stepped up behind him and placed both hands on his shoulders. Feeling the solid presence at his back was incredibly helpful. Peter unleashed his talent full throttle, absolutely sure he was going to pay for it in a big way later. He managed to constrict the iliac artery and clot a whole slew of capillaries that were oozing blood around the entrance wound. Or was that the exit? What the hell, the one in the front of Jonas's abdomen. Back near the kidney, he let his fingers and his mind explore the damage there. There were several more torn blood vessels and a laceration to the capsule and outer cortex of the kidney; luckily that wasn't too bad. One of the

bigger nerves was traumatized but not severed. Peter soothed the erratic conduction of the nerve. Better assessment and repair there would have to wait. Peter felt Danny's arms wrap around his torso and returned a fraction of his awareness to his own body. He realized he was sagging backward against Danny. "Vithoulkas? Hey Peter, are you gonna pass out on me?" Danny demanded. "No… no… need more glucose. I'm just running out of steam." His voice sounded thick and distant. He could feel Danny hold him a little tighter with one arm, while the opposite fed him the tablets. Geez, the overly sweet taste was getting revolting. Danny's thigh was pressed against his butt, making sure his legs didn't completely buckle. Peter crunched the glucose and choked them down. He needed all the energy he could get; his body was burning through it at a furious speed. The heavy thupthup sound of a helicopter drew his attention. "They're here," said the corpsman, still eyeing Peter strangely. Jonas Nightengale was put into a Stokes basket and carried to the waiting helicopter. As he was being loaded in, Peter looked back at Danny standing several steps away. Danny was yelling at the corpsman over the rotor sound of the helicopter, "Here, make sure Vithoulkas eats these. He's got blood sugar issues and I don't want him crashing out." He shoved a water bottle and another tube of glucose tablets in the guy's hand. "I'll catch up to you in a few hours at the hospital," shouted Valentine in Peter's direction. "Take care of Nightengale."

Peter nodded. His patient was just barely stable, and the helicopter flight was not going to be short. He gave Danny a thumbs up and hopped in next to Nightengale. *** One of Espeleta's arms was dragged over top of Rayden's shoulder as Rayden, Tabano and the once missing operative came into the field command. Danny hurried in their direction. "Den! God, you have no clue how worried we've been about you!" Danny said, giving Espeleta a rough hug. He took Rayden's place at Dennis' side and helped the man in the direction of the triage area. "Hey, can I get you to check my guy out?" Valentine asked one of the corpsmen as he eased Espeleta down to sit on a crate. "You're gonna be fine," Danny reassured Dennis, as he dropped to a knee beside the man. He let his talents roam across the surface of Espeleta's mind. The operative was shaken, and in some moderate physical pain, but remarkably, seemed to be mentally holding it together pretty well. However, Danny wasn't sure exactly how long that was likely to last once the last of the adrenaline of being rescued had worn off and the rest of the trauma set in. *** In the military hospital, Danny found Peter Vithoulkas sprawled on his stomach on a wooden bench in the hallway, asleep. One arm dangled off the edge. Danny was somewhat loathe to wake him, but he wanted to know if Peter had heard anything about Jonas' condition. He squatted down beside the healer and gently shook him by the shoulder.

"Peter?" Danny said softly. The man's head bobbed up, looking disoriented. "Huh? Oh hey." "You hear anything about Jonas yet?" "Yeah, he got out of surgery, um…" Peter peered at his watch. "About half an hour ago. He's tentatively stable now, but it was apparently touch and go for a little while when they started repairing the torn artery." "How are you doing?" asked Danny. "Fine, I'm just dog-tired. What about Espeleta?" "They're treating him for dehydration. He's banged up and pretty shaken, but okay. I think he could probably benefit from a good session with Benford," Danny said, referring so Division P's head psychologist. "When this is all done, Jonas should have a few rounds with Stephen, too. What about the rest of the team? Where are they?" "Recovering, more or less. I got us all rooms at the base's temporary housing. They can shower, eat and grab some down time. Speaking of which, did you ever eat? I'm sure all those sugar tablets weren't much more than a stop gap measure." "Yeah, I grabbed some food in the cafeteria a while ago. I could probably use some more though." "How 'bout we swing by the mess hall and pick up some stuff, then you can go crash. No offense, but you look like shit." Peter gave him half a grin and said, "Yeah, I probably do." "The housing is kind of tight for available rooms right now. I said we'd share. I hope you don't mind." Danny was a little uncertain exactly where they stood, despite what had happened a couple of nights ago out in the demilitarized zone. "No problem," said Peter.

*** Trudging up the corridor of the Spartan dormitorylike base housing, Peter reflected on the events of the past few days. They'd found their missing agent, Dennis Espeleta. Good. Another member of their team had been critically injured in the process. Bad. But Nightengale was alive and all indications at the moment were that he would continue to improve. Thank God. As Danny Valentine walked along beside him, Peter was glad of his presence. Danny had proved to be a dependable colleague, relatively cool under pressure and… Peter would really like to revisit that kiss now that they were no longer in the war zone. The two of them stopped in front of a door and Danny unlocked it. Inside, the room had the minimum necessary amenities: two single beds, night stand, chest of drawers and a desk. The bathroom was off to one side. Danny pushed the door shut. Now was as good a time as any. Peter pushed his taller colleague back against the wall and clasped his hands around Danny's head, pulling him down into a hard kiss. Against his body, he felt Danny jerk a little. Shit. He'd misjudged how open Danny was to the idea of the two of them. Damn, he was tired, and just plain not paying enough attention. Peter started to pull away, but firm hands restrained him, holding him close. "It's okay," Danny whispered. "You just caught me off guard." His face dipped toward Peter's and he returned the kiss. In another half a minute they were pushing and pulling at clothing, T-shirts hitting the floor and belts being yanked loose. Danny paused again. "What?" Peter whimpered, impatience reigning. "You're covered in blood," said Danny slowly.

Peter looked down. Jonas Nightengale's blood had apparently soaked through his shirt in several places and dried on his skin. "Oh, um," Peter mumbled. Danny pushed him in the direction of the bathroom. "Neither of us has had a shower in three days. I think we're due." "You have a point." They stripped the rest of the way while the shower warmed up. Peter let his eyes roam down the length of Danny's body as they got under the spray. Six feet four inches of hard lean muscle, the man was a good six inches taller than Peter himself. All those sculpted planes and curves, and the package was proportional to the rest of him. Danny reached out and grabbed the fresh bar of soap from the sink and peeled the wrapper off before stepping into the shower. He began to rub it across the dried blood on Peter's chest and belly. The foam turned brown-red, and sluiced away as the water hit it. He continued, soaping lower down Peter's hip, down his hardening cock and under his balls. Peter groaned. It had been a while since hands other than his own had touched him. Danny dropped to his knees and lathered down Peter's legs, strong fingers running along tight muscles. Grabbing Peter's hips, he turned Peter to face the water and dragged the bar of soap slowly up the crack of Peter's ass before kneading the curves of his butt. Danny stood back up and wrapped both arms around Peter's body, reaching forward to stroke Peter's cock as he ground himself against the base of Peter's spine. Peter braced one hand on the wall, letting himself thrust into the obliging tightness of Danny's hand. He let

his psychic shielding fall open, eager to feel the other man's mind sliding against his own. He could tell Danny's pleasure was equal to his own, as his partner's shields were melting away too. As their soap-slicked bodies ground together, Danny bent his head forward to nip at Peter's ear, the corner of his jaw, down the side of his neck. Peter could hear Danny's harsh, uneven breathing at the side of his face. Riding the crest of the tension, Peter's fingers clawed at the tile as he splattered semen on the shower wall and over Danny's fingers. Danny's own release was seconds later as he pressed Peter's body flat to the wall with his own. Peter felt both the warm spurting surge against his back and the toe curling spasm of pleasure that washed out from Danny's mind. Danny's arm was still wound tightly around Peter's body and it was just about all that kept him upright for the next couple of minutes as he struggled to catch his breath. Eventually he turned within the circle of Danny's embrace to face him. He kissed Danny, a deep openmouthed thank you, then he fished the soap up from where it had fallen on the floor and began to wash Danny. There was something entrancing about the solid presence of Danny's mind in his as his hands traced pecs and abs and quads and glutes. Jesus, the man could pass as the model for some Teutonic god. Exhaustion was catching up again fast. Peter faltered in his exploration of that gorgeous body, his own wanting to fall into sleep while he stood in the comforting heat of the shower. "You're almost out on your feet," Danny said as he reached back to turn off the water. "Sorry," Peter apologized thickly. "Don't be. Come on, let's go to bed. You need the rest."

Danny helped him dry off and guided him out into the main room. Peter sank onto one of the beds, too tired to hunt for skivvies in his duffle bag. "I know the bed's not very big. Do you want company?" Danny asked. Peter nodded and scooted over against the wall that flanked the bed. The same sort of feelings that had made him almost unconsciously reach out to Danny out in the field were still present. He'd spent hours holding Jonas Nightengale in the land of the living. On some primal level he needed the comforting touch of someone who wasn't on the verge of dying. Snuggled together in the narrow bed, Danny whispered, "You and me, is this some kind of stress response thing?" "I don't know," replied Peter. "Does it matter?" "No." *** "Where's Vithoulkas?" asked Rayden as Danny sat down at a table with the remainder of his men in the base mess hall to eat breakfast. "Still sleeping. He was wiped out after what he did for Jonas yesterday," Danny replied. All of his team received basic information on the Talents of their colleagues when they went through training. They also were taught awareness of some of the special vulnerabilities of various psi as well. "You hear anything more about Jonas?" "I checked with the hospital. He's still in ICU, but he's fairly stable," said Claydon. "Good. I talked to Bottman an hour ago. He's working on arrangements to airlift him to Landstahl in Germany in a couple of days. Then hopefully, fingers

crossed and all that, he'll be flown back to headquarters in a week or so, for recovery and rehab," Danny told them. "I'm guessing we're not hanging around that long," speculated Tabano. "No, you're right. Barring a downturn for Jonas or some problem on the flight end of things, the rest of us are leaving at 2200." *** The Division P team, minus Jonas, left Kosovo that night, and made it as far as LRMC in Germany with the intention of catching a MAC flight back to the states. The weather, however, had different ideas and the flight was postponed until the following day. Hanging out in one of the biergartens near the base, Danny and Peter grabbed dinner and a beer. "Last time I got a flight canceled on me while on assignment, I got stuck in O'Hare with about four hundred amazingly pissed off people. It was creepy weird, too," said Danny. "Why? Did they riot or something?" "No, no, I saw a couple of pushing and shoving matches but nothing that major. It was a 'me' thing." "What do you mean?" asked Peter. Something about Danny's tone worried him a little. "Maybe it was all the people, and me being really tired, I don't know. I had exactly one beer so I wasn't even close to drunk. It was overwhelming. For a little while I was so mad I couldn't even think straight. I finally walked down to the far end of the concourse where there weren't many people and punched a wall. Damn near broke my hand, but the pain sort of reset my shield stuff. I hadn't had my empathic stuff get that far

out of control since I was a teenager. The weirdest part is that I don't really even remember walking down the corridor. The whole rest of the day had this weird hazy quality to it, like my brain was only hitting on half the cylinders." "How long ago was this?" asked Peter. "Uh, about four months ago." "I wish you'd come to me to have me look at your hand. Maybe I would have had a clue about the rest of it, too." "It's kind of embarrassing in a stupid way. Getting so wound up I punched something. Anyway, I just bruised the crap out of my hand. It was no big deal." "Maybe." Peter was unconvinced. He and Stephen Benford had spent the last couple of years cataloging and analyzing the unusual set of symptoms and side effects that often accompanied psi traits. He had a gut level suspicion that Danny's episode hinted at a something different. He just had no idea what.

May The calendar on Danny Valentine's computer said it was a new month. Maybe this was a good thing, because in some ways the last one had been crazy, both good crazy and bad crazy. Jonas Nightengale was now back at the Division P complex, rehabbing from his serious injury. The other three men from the mission had returned to their normal jobs, and Espeleta had spent a week in counseling with Stephen Benford. Then there was Peter. After all the events in Kosovo, a sort of "friends with benefits" relationship had developed. Danny's schedule was frequently frantic and sometimes involved travel, but when he was home at the complex, they'd occasionally hook up. Speaking of busy, Danny noticed that a new recruit to Division P was arriving in a couple of days. Her name was Jennifer Sebastiano. Her "day job" was a bit odd, he thought. Most of Division P's recruits came from military backgrounds or the many government agencies. This woman taught art at a community college part-time and spent the rest of her time as a forensic artist. Not the "sculpt a face on a skull" type, but the kind that came up with sketches of suspects. She did freelance work for numerous police departments in the DC/Baltimore metro area. Sebastiano had a reputation for being able to get usable information from even severely traumatized victims. She had been suggested as a candidate for Division P after her work on a particularly brutal case that captured the attention of the FBI, where Division P had several people permanently placed. Ah, he kind of understood. According to interview notes, she was essentially a visual telepath who saw

images of what people thought rather than heard or sensed from them as many other telepaths did. Sebastiano also apparently did occasional gallery shows. He had thumbed through some snapshots of her paintings. Dark. Dark and seriously disturbing. Notes in the file from her interview with the Division P shrink, Stephen Benford, indicated the images were based on the memories of victims and not internally generated. Still, putting those images on canvas meant she had to experience them in some way. Once Sebastiano arrived and was assigned quarters, she would get the usual overview and a tentative training schedule that covered everything from focus skills and work on honing a psychic's specific talents to more strictly applied in-the-field skills, like hand to hand combat and small arms qualifications. Danny was the person primarily responsible for those last two tasks. He had a meeting, a conference call and a heap of paperwork on the slate for the next few days. Danny made a note on his Outlook that he needed to track down Sebastiano sometime after her arrival and get things going on his end of responsibilities. *** Was this going to be one of the most uniquely awesome experiences of her life or an episode in hell akin to boot camp? Not that she'd ever actually been to boot camp. Jennifer Sebastiano opened the door to the room she'd been assigned. She was anticipating something bare and functional, reminiscent of a dorm room. It was far better than she'd expected, somewhere between an upscale hotel set-up and an apartment. She dropped her purse on the tan sofa and spent a couple of minutes looking around. It was a one bedroom

apartment. There was a fully furnished den, decorated in neutral colors of brown, navy and cream, with a modest efficiency style kitchenette tucked in the corner, a reasonably ample bathroom, and a decent sized bedroom with a double bed in it. Wow, living here for the next ten weeks might not be so bad. Getting into the complex had been a little like going through airport security. The armed guards at the gate, the checking of both her driver's license and car registration, and the thumbprint scan had been a little creepy. They had told her that this first time entry process to Division P headquarters was the most extensive and that later entries would be simpler. The rest of her luggage was still in her car. She guessed she'd better bring it in. Later in the day she was supposed to meet a Ms. Sumiko Pierce for some kind of overview and introduction thing. *** Drinking from the fire hose, oh yeah, that just about described it. The quantity of information Jennifer had been presented with was vast. There was everything from the standard W-4's, I-9's and benefits package details, to lists of which staff member oversaw which parts of training and assignments and health care. There was also what seemed like a ream of pages on exactly what training she was supposed to receive and some of the desired outcomes. She was issued a three-inch binder for all this, but was told that due to security reasons, she would only be allowed to keep the binder while she was in the complex. Christ Almighty, this was reminiscent of grad school -- well except for the implication of "if you tell any unauthorized people about us, we'll have to kill

you." Okay, realistically, it wasn't quite that extreme, but at times it gave that impression. Blissfully, Sumiko Pearce, the woman in charge of the training schedule, was patient and had a sense of humor. According to what she told Jennifer, Sumiko functioned as a recruiter for Division P and also did a piece of the in house administration and training. She seldom did any actual field work anymore since her accident. Jennifer had gazed sympathetically at the woman in the wheelchair. As they were drawing to the end of the information session, a thin man with sandy brown hair poked his head into the small conference room that Jennifer and Sumiko were using. "Hey Miko, I was expecting to see you this afternoon for a checkup and rehab session," he said. "I was told you got sucked into a meeting with some of the Navy Intelligence people this afternoon," Sumiko countered. "I did, but it was only for an hour. My part just involved safety protocols for our people. Can you come by after dinner?" "Yeah, I can do that. Oh, by the way, this is Jennifer Sebastiano. She's a newbie. I'm sure you'll see her around over the next few weeks. Jennifer, meet the infamous Peter Vithoulkas, the medical miracle man," quipped Sumiko. "Hi, nice to meet you. If I see you tomorrow and don't have the slightest idea what your name is, don't be offended. I suck at names, and I think I've been introduced to about forty people today," said Jennifer. Peter grinned. "The first week is kind of chaotic. It gets better. See you later, Sumiko." He departed with a wave.

"So what makes him the medical miracle man?" asked Jennifer. "He's a healer. The best Division P has ever found. Healers are statistically the rarest of all psi talents, and of those that have it, most are mediocre at best. He's probably the only reason I can even stand. After my car accident, the surgeons bolted and screwed my broken pelvis back together along with the broken hip and cracked femur. But I also have some serious damage to my sciatic nerve cluster. He's been working for months on healing my nerve damage. It's slow going, but it's getting better about a tenth of a percent at a time. I was originally told I would never be able to stand, much less walk. Now I can do both. Granted, more than a dozen steps and the pain starts to crank and I begin to lose coordination, but it's getting there." "Wow," said Jennifer, not sure what else to say. "If you ever get seriously injured, he is the man you want taking care of you." *** When Danny walked into the infirmary, Peter was slouched on a stool. A coffee cup sat perched on the edge of the desk and Peter was slowing typing something into a file. "Whatever it is you're working on, you look absolutely under-enthused," said Danny. Peter looked up and gave him a tired smile. "Just patient files." "You know, I bet you could get one of the nurses to transcribe for you." "It's not that sort of files. It's my personal impressions and thoughts on the healing I do. I'm forever trying to

fine tune my stuff. It helps me analyze what works and what doesn't," replied Peter. "You look tired too." Danny put his hands on Peter's shoulders and tipped him back far enough to place an upside down kiss on Peter's forehead. As he eased Peter back to upright, he said, "I have beer in my fridge." "Mmm, sounds tempting." Danny threaded his fingers through Peter's short hair, gently digging into his scalp. He could tell Peter was wound tight despite that fact he pushing toward dead tired. Danny leaned down further and whispered in Peter's ear. "I might blow you." That elicited a chuckle from Peter. "That's the best offer I've had all day." *** Danny had barely settled on the sofa in his quarters when Peter pushed him back flat along the cushions. Peter was a bundle of thin wiry muscle that, at the moment, nearly vibrated with tension as he squirmed on top of Danny, ravaging his mouth with hard kisses. Peter's body was a comfortable weight on Danny's, and the hard grind of Peter's crotch against his own was swiftly sending arousal signals to his prick. He could feel the heat of Peter's lust flickering at the edges of his shields and eagerly opened them to bask in the intensity of the primal emotion. The assault turned into a wrestling match as shirts were yanked open and belts unbuckled. Peter's teeth were nipping at his collar bone, fingers teasing one nipple. Danny bucked beneath Peter and they both went sliding off the edge of the sofa, hitting the floor with a thud that left Danny gasping for a moment.

"You okay?" asked Peter, sprawled at a crazy angle on top of him. Danny made a snort of laughter. "Yeah, fine." Danny wormed a hand down inside the back of Peter's jeans to knead his fingers into the curve of his partner's ass. Peter groaned and then sucked at the skin along Danny's ribs. Danny wrapped both arms around Peter's body pulling them back into some kind of alignment and flipped them both over. Lying with some of his weight braced on his elbows as his hands cupped Peter's head, Danny's hips pushed Peter's thighs apart. Danny delivered a hungry kiss to Peter's open mouth and then began to work his way down the man's throat to his chest, leaving a damp trail of little bites and licks. Peter moaned and writhed beneath him. Shoving Peter's jeans and briefs down around his thighs, Danny ran his tongue in a long, broad stroke up the underside of Peter's hard and leaking cock. The skin was flushed deep rosy pink and glossy as near transparent liquid seeped from the slit. Danny licked across the tip and curled his fingers firmly around the hot length. Peter began making little gasps and groans as Danny jacked him slowly. Jesus God, listening to those little noises of pleasure made Danny want Peter inside him. He rose up on his hands and knees above his lover and stared down into Peter's eyes. "Fuck me?" he whispered. They had always stuck to mouths and hands before. Peter's gaze was intense, pupils blown wide. "If you've got stuff, hell yeah." Danny retrieved a condom and lube from his bedroom and paused halfway back to finish stripping. Peter had removed the rest of his own clothing by the time Danny got back.

Putting supplies in Peter's hands, Danny knelt in front of the couch and bent forward. In a minute he felt a cool slick finger pressing into him, as Peter gripped his hip with the other hand. More fingers followed, carefully pushing and twisting. Danny rocked back a little, wanting more. "Now, unh, want you in me," begged Danny. Peter obliged and pushed himself in. Danny sucked in a breath, pressure and pleasure stealing coherent thought. Peter eased back and thrust again, coming close to nailing that one spot. Danny groaned. The rhythm may have started slow but in seconds accelerated to bodies smacking quickly together. Danny grabbed his own cock and stroked himself as Peter's thrusts began to slam into him with less and less control. He felt the wave of ecstasy building like an avalanche and it hit him hard. Vision blurred into starry grayness as the orgasm tore through his body. Just as the pulsing pleasure began to wane, he was hit by the crash of his lover's release. The echo-y sensation tore through him, washing waves of the rush all the way out to his fingers and toes. Spent and fighting for breath, Danny pillowed his face on one arm on the sofa cushion. Peter was draped along his back, arms looped loosely around Danny's body. Slowly he turned and sat on the carpet, his back against the couch. He pulled Peter forward into his lap, and they sat chest to chest, Peter's thighs straddled around Danny's hips. Peter's head drooped onto Danny's shoulder. "Damn, that was good," mumbled Peter. Danny traced gentle circles along Peter's spine, enjoying the drowsy after burn of Peter's mind brushing along his. "Mmm yeah… awesome," murmured Danny.

***

"This is a Glock 9mm. It's dependable, seldom jams, and has no safety," said the range master. Jennifer Sebastiano stood in a bay on the firing range with a man named Danny Valentine. The man was more than six feet of blond muscle and looked like he belonged on a poster for "Vikings R Us." The lethal weapon in his hands had about the same aesthetics as a brick, a blocky hunk of metal made of mostly right angles. This was her first shooting lesson. She'd never fired a gun before, unless you wanted to count a BB gun in a cousin's backyard. Valentine laid the gun on the bench and picked up the other piece. "This is the magazine. It holds the bullets. It slides in the butt like this. Push it in until you feel it click," he said. "To remove it, push the button here and it will slide out. Now I want you to load it." Jennifer gazed at the open box of bullets in front of her. She picked up the magazine in her left hand and pulled out a bullet, trying to determine which end was supposed to go in which direction. Danny reached across her hand and twisted the bullet into the correct position. "Make them go uphill. Use your thumb to push it down." She struggled to press the round into the clip, the spring fighting her all the way. Good thing she had amazingly short fingernails, otherwise they'd probably be bending backward due to the pressure. "Load just five for now," he said. It took her another couple of minutes to do so. "Okay. Done," she said, holding up the clip. "Put it in."

She did it, but it was an awkward maneuver, and definitely not as easy as he made it look. He showed her how to chamber the first round. One more thing that looked easy when he did it. She had a tough time getting a strong enough grip to pull the slide back. He mimed how she should hold it. "Aim and fire." She pulled the trigger and the recoil scared her almost as bad as the noise. "Holy shit! That was loud." "Again," he said. On the second shot, the spent casing tinked against her safety glasses as it flew out of the ejection port. That made her flinch. "It helps if you open your eyes when you squeeze the trigger," said Valentine from a few steps behind her. She laid the 9mm down on the bench in front of her and turned to face him, further irritated that she had to tilt her head back to see his face; the guy was damn near a foot taller than her. "I don't give a rat's ass if I hit the target or not!" she snapped at Valentine. "Well I do. I'm not expecting sniper level accuracy, but hitting the black part of the target would be helpful," he said calmly. "The object of this training is a make sure you have a reasonable chance of defending yourself if you're put in a life threatening situation." "I'm an artist! Short of cruising through some ghetto at midnight, I'm not very likely to be in any life threatening situations," she shouted. "You're a Division P agent, and you have absolutely no clue what you might get exposed to." "I'd have more luck stabbing somebody with a sharp pencil." "Hand to hand basics are part of the training, too." His tone was too damn controlled. She wanted to haul

off and smack him. He smirked at her. Oh hell, she was broadcasting. She had no idea exactly what his Talent was, but in this place most everybody had some degree of telepathy or empathy. After all, that's why Division P employed them. "Let's try again. Pick up the weapon. Get a firm grip with your right hand and then add your left for support. No, no, don't stick your finger on the trigger until you're ready to fire," Valentine ordered. Jennifer growled in frustration. "Keep a grip on the gun, I'm going to adjust your stance." From behind, he stuck his foot between hers and nudged her feet further apart, then grabbed her hips and angled them slightly. His hands fell on her shoulder, thumbs against her spine. "Unscrunch your shoulders, try to relax and focus on just your hands. Don't yank on the trigger, try to squeeze it until the shot is almost a surprise." "Surprises the hell out of me. I keep expecting to drop the stupid thing when it jerks so hard," she said. His hands hadn't moved, they were still pushing down on her shoulders. She pulled the trigger and the heavy gun jumped in her hands again. The shot hit the edge of the black portion of the target, about where the shoulder of the silhouette was. "That's a little better," commented Valentine. "Try again." He reached forward and wrapped his hands around hers. They were much bigger. She flinched a little. Training in this place took "hands-on" to a whole new level. Psychically talented people were quite frequently pathologically shy of touch, or so the staff of Division P had told her. The extra sensory input could be so overwhelming. This tended to give the general public the impression that those people were cold, aloof and

distant. In here, it was so incredibly different. There was full acknowledgement that touching was difficult, with the flip side being there was lots of intentional contact to help the psi learn better coping skills. Jennifer still hadn't decided how she felt about the whole concept. "Relax," Valentine murmured. "Aim. Squeeze." Yeah, and the loud report made her flinch again, only this time the solid wall of male fingers around her own buffered her motion. The hole in the target this time was a little closer to the middle of the outline. The shooting range lesson went on for another half hour. Jennifer got almost used to Valentine's poking and prodding of her body as he corrected her stance, her grip, her aim and basically every facet of her performance. Half the time he was practically pressed against her back, the other half he was three feet to one side, with that analytical look on his face. She used up two full boxes of bullets. In the span of that time she did manage to get so she was generally hitting the black silhouette of the target most of the time. "Am I done?" she asked pulling off the ear protection and safety glasses. "For today. You're improving some." "Yeah. I can hit a barn at ten paces. God, I still think this is an utter waste of my time," Jennifer replied. "You can think anything you like. It's part of the program. The longer Division P is in operation, the more widely varied the things we're called to do." Jennifer was heading for the door when he called after her. "I'll see you in a week or two for the hand to hand intro." She rolled her eyes as she left. Great, I'm going to get pounded into the floor by Thor the barbarian, she thought. ***

Feisty, sarcastic, and uncoordinated. Danny Valentine decided all of the above applied to Ms. Jennifer Sebastiano as he watched her leave the shooting range. She was about average height, slightly round in that squishy "I don't exercise much" female way, with dark brown hair that probably fell all the way to her butt when it wasn't pulled back into a braid. She'd be wicked fun in an argument he'd bet. He could almost visualize her in a full on temper tantrum. She'd probably be the type to scream and throw things. *** All work and no play… yadda, yadda, yadda. The Virginia Beach Amphitheater held some fairly awesome concerts and Danny was a fan of Nickelback. He had bought some tickets to their concert for Peter and himself. It turned out to be moderately crowded, with something like twenty thousand people there. Danny walked back up the hill toward where Peter was lounging on the grass above the main reserved seating area. He'd decided to go to the concert on the cheap and bought lawn tickets instead of seats. Danny had to concentrate to put one foot in front of the other and he was sure anybody who saw him thought he was drunk off his ass. Yup, drunk as a skunk, 'cept not on beer, on the emotions of twenty thousand charged up people. It was a good concert and he was high as a kite. *** As the finale deafened the crowd and crackled the speakers, Peter watched Danny jumping up and down and pumping his fist in the air. There was something just

plain off about the way the guy was behaving. When the music ended, Danny went staggering off in the direction of the crowd flow. Peter yelled after him, but Danny seemed oblivious. All Peter could really do was try to follow him. Five minutes later he found Danny halfway up a massive chain link fence hollering at a couple of women on the other side. "Fuck it, Danny! Get off the fence! You're going to get arrested!" Peter yelled at him. Danny gave him a bleary squint. One of the women on the other side was hiking up her shirt and flashing him her tits. Unh… yeah. Danny fumbled his way down and landed on his ass. Peter hauled him to his feet and slung one of Danny's arms over his shoulder, half-guiding, half dragging Danny in the direction of the gate to the parking lot. *** Danny's head was spinning and walking was a serious challenge. What the fuck? Why did he feel this way? Danny struggled to stay on his feet. When he stumbled, only Peter's grip kept him from taking a header straight into the gravel of the parking lot. There were just too many damn people and the sheer noise of so many minds was a blur of nauseating pain. He continued to shuffle along, trusting Peter to have some clue where they were going. Car. There was a car involved. People walking faster flowed around them. The motion made it harder to figure out where the hell he was putting his feet. ***

Jesus God, there was the car. Peter finally saw it in the middle of a line of others. It figured they'd had to park in "outer Mongolia" for a concert this big. Right now his main concern was to get Danny back to the car and away from the main bulk of the crowd. At least it had thinned out some as they walked. Actually, staggered was a more appropriate term for Danny. Peter knew that people who saw them assumed Danny was trashed out of his mind. Whatever. Peter leaned Danny against the car and groped in his pocket for his keys. As he was about to unlock the door, Danny's hand clutched weakly at Peter's shirt. "Gonna puke," he slurred and fell to his hands and knees, vomiting in the grass. Peter hastily wrapped an arm around Danny's body and cupped a hand under his forehead. As hard as Danny's muscles were shaking, Peter could tell he was fighting against passing out. Once the puking had dwindled to gagging, Peter exerted his talent and shut the rest of the nausea down. He eased Danny back to sit against the car. "Try to breathe slow and easy," Peter said. He kept one hand curled against Danny's neck and the other hand he placed on Danny's chest. The man's pulse was thundering and his skin was slicked with sweat. Skull cracking head pain was beginning to flare and Peter intercepted that, too. They sat for a number of minutes with Peter not quite holding Danny up as he leaned on the car, until Danny's pulse had slowed to something closer to normal. Peter probably could have hurried things along a little, but that would have taken more focus than he was willing to give up sitting in the semidark parking lot of the amphitheater. "Let's get you in the car, and head for home, okay?" Peter said.

Danny nodded, body still shaking slightly. Peter helped him to his feet and into the seat, tilting it back a little and buckling his partner in. Danny's hands went to his head. "Fucking God… it hurts." Peter clasped his hands gently against the sides of Danny's head. The pain had shot up again as soon as Peter had actively stopped suppressing it. "Once I manage to get us out of the parking lot and on the road, I'll block it for you, but you're going to have to tough it out for a few minutes." Danny grimaced and nodded, curling a little tighter in the seat. *** At the Division P complex outside of Suffolk Virginia, Danny half blindly followed Peter toward his quarters. Peter was damping down the freaking awful pain in his head, but he still felt near incoherent. It just didn't track. He had felt so insanely good, and then so insanely bad. There was a common word there. Insane. Man, he really did feel like he was losing it. This was worse than a hangover. "Lie down," Peter ordered and Danny stretched out on the bed. That actually helped a little, so he felt less like he was going to fall on his face. Peter settled onto the bed next to him and rubbed gentle fingers down the side of his chest "What the fuck is wrong with me?" asked Danny. "At a guess, ten thousand rowdy concert goers overwhelmed your empathic talents. One minute you're climbing the fence, literally. Five minutes later, you're barfing your guts up and about to pass out." Peter's

hands traced lightly through Danny's hair and made soothing little circles on his temples. "Climbing the fence? I don't remember that." "Somehow, I'm not surprised. I think you were pretty out of it at that point." "God, I feel like shit. This is worse than last year when that thing happened at the airport with all the canceled flights. I nearly put my fist through a wall, but I least I remembered that." "Yeah but that was a few hundred people, and this was thousands. Open your eyes and follow my finger," said Peter. Danny pried open his eyes and tried to obey. His eyes didn't seem to want to focus in some spots. That was just so weird, and what he wanted most was to sleep. "Danny, stay awake for just a few more minutes. Hold out your hands and squeeze my fingers." Danny felt uncoordinated as he did this. "My fingers feel funky." "You're exhibiting seizure-like symptoms," Peter replied. "Huh? That's bad isn't it?" "I'm not sure. I'm going to be really overcautious and sit here with you for a few hours while you sleep. I think your nervous system tripped a few breakers." Danny decided this sounded bad but he couldn't get his head around how bad, or if Peter was protecting him from something worse. Peter stretched out on the bed beside him and pulled Danny tightly against his body. "It's okay. I'll take care of you," he whispered. Danny buried his face in Peter's shoulder and let himself slide into sleep. ***

Fourteen hours was a pretty damn long time to sleep. Peter was relieved when Danny finally woke and stumbled off to the bathroom. Danny came back and sat on the edge of the bed and ran his fingers through his hair. "Damn, it looks like afternoon. How long was I out?" Danny asked. "Nearly fourteen hours. You still tired?" "Um, yeah. Shit, I haven't felt this wiped out after being up for forty-eight hours. If I wasn't starving I'd think about crawling back in bed." "Then do so, but strip first. I want to test your reflexes head to toes. While you undress I'll go grab you some food from the cafeteria," Peter said. Despite the fact he'd played watchdog over Danny while he slept, Peter was still concerned. CNS problems were sometimes very hard to fix. A brutal vision of watching his father die by inches from ALS tore through Peter's head. The memory shook him and he was hard pressed not to grab Danny and hold him very tightly. "I think I can manage to walk to the other end of the building. You can do the reflex thing after we grab some food," Danny objected. "No. I want you in bed. I watched you walk to the bathroom and back. Your coordination sucks big time. It may just be postictal to the episode yesterday; I'm trying to figure it out." "Post-ictal? That makes me sound like a dead fish," replied Danny and he rolled his eyes. Peter cupped his hands around Danny's face. "That's 'ichthy'. Please. Humor me. I'm worried." He kissed Danny softly. ***

All the neurological tests were normal. Danny ate the sandwich and salad that Peter brought him. It satisfied the hunger, but he still felt dead tired. It just made no sense that he could sleep that long and still feel exhausted. He was stretched out in the bed again, this time buck naked under the sheets. He could feel the concern seeping from Peter, and that bothered him. "Wake me up in about a week," he teased, trying to lighten the tension a little. "Crap. Don't joke about that. I keep wondering if I missed something," said Peter. "Fuck it. Scoot over. I'm going to be your shadow until I'm sure you're okay." He ditched all his clothes on the floor beside the bed and slid in next to Danny. Peter wrapped an arm across Danny's chest. "Go to sleep." Danny brushed a finger across his lover's lips. "Talk to me. Tell me why you're so bent out shape. I've seen you with your hands inside people guts, holding back death until they can get to surgery. Why is this wigging you out so badly?" He rolled over enough to place a careful kiss on Peter's mouth. This wasn't like Peter to be so close to distraught. "My dad died of a really aggressive form of ALS. I watched him die, day by day. Every night I poured every ounce of energy I had left into him, trying to stop it, trying to fix him, trying just to slow it down. I made every mistake in the book and ended up unconscious of the floor of my math class. I was in a coma for three days. And during those three days, my father died. Whatever I was doing for him was all that was holding him on this side of the veil. The problem was I nearly killed myself trying to save him." Danny's heart hurt with the grief of Peter's admission. "How old were you?" he asked.

"Sixteen." Danny didn't know what to say. There weren't any words to solace the pain Peter had been through. He squirmed around to a position where he could pull Peter's body against his own, wrapping both arms and one leg around his lover. He rained gentle kisses down the side of Peter's face.

Early June One of Division P's finders, a Navy pilot named Cameron Bradshaw, had been critically injured in a motorcycle accident. Danny Valentine had been to the hospital to check on his status. Thankfully, the man appeared to be reasonably stable, even if he was in the ICU. Still, Danny worried, something about the accident didn't feel right. Bradshaw had been tapped for a potential assignment from Division P for Naval Intelligence, but then the assignment had been put on hold. Danny had called the hospital this morning to make sure Bradshaw was still improving. Apparently so, since the man had been moved from ICU to a standard room. It was always a dicey call on whether Division P should interfere with injuries not incurred during an assignment. Peter, Stephen, and himself had gone a couple of rounds with Bottman and the other powers that be on where the dividing line should be drawn. For now, it appeared that Bradshaw was being adequately cared for by the civilian hospital. *** Jennifer opened the door to the workout room. Time to go meet "Thor" and butt heads some more. One side of the room was all equipment: treadmills, ellipticals, and weight machines; the other side was mats. Valentine was sitting on a weight bench, waiting for her. He was dressed in a T-shirt and sweat pants, no shoes. She was so not in the mood for this. The morning had been a grueling episode in mental focus and she had done badly. Her head hurt and she was in an incredibly pissy mood.

"You ready for some basic self-defense?" he asked. "No." Hey, at least she was being honest. "Mmm. Well, tough. Take off your shoes. Stand on the mat. I'm going to grab you. I want to see what your response is. Then we'll talk defense strategies." He waited until she had taken off her shoes and was standing in front him, then he reached out and grabbed her wrist. Jesus, the man's hand went around the entirety of her wrist and then some. "Try to get away," he said, grabbing her hair. God that sounded like a sarcastic challenge. Fuck this shit. Jennifer smashed her elbow across his face, drove her fist into his solar plexus and boosted him off his feet with her hip, hurling him to the floor. When he hit, he lay still, fighting for breath, and bleeding profusely from his nose. She stood immobile in pure fury for about three seconds, until it dawned on her that she had hurt him. Oh God, her day just kept getting better and better. There was a stack of towels by the door and she hurriedly grabbed a couple, dropping beside him and trying to stop the bleeding. "I'm… shit… I'm sorry… I just meant to make a point. I didn't mean to really hurt you." Valentine's eyes were tearing. His hand came up and over hers, pressing the towel to his face at a different angle. "God, it hurts," he mumbled. "Somebody told me there was a clinic and a really good healer guy. Can you walk? Or should I go get somebody?" "I can walk… I think," he replied. She helped him to his feet, and guided him toward the door. His steps were unsteady. Damn, she'd made a mess of things. It took a couple of minutes to walk to the clinic. There was that slender man with sharp features wearing

scrubs there. He was talking to a woman she didn't recognize. What the hell was the guy's name? Jennifer remembered being introduced to him sometime in the past few weeks. His eyes widened when he saw Valentine, blood splattered down the front of his shirt, blood soaked towel held to his face. "Danny! Shit, what happened?" the man demanded. He took over for Jennifer and guided Valentine to an exam table, hastily grabbing gloves and gauze and another towel. "Okay, easy, just lie back and let me get the bleeding stopped." Valentine lay down and the medic cupped his hand across Danny's bloody nose. The injured man's body relaxed somewhat. Jennifer slid down the wall beside the door and sat on the floor. The entire day had been a disaster. She was impatient, she'd let her really evil temper get away from her, and she'd hurt somebody. She found Valentine irritating as hell, but he didn't deserve to get hurt by her. He was just doing his job. She looped her arms under her legs and buried her face against her knees, trying hard to stave off the tears. She wasn't being very successful at it, so she got up and hurried from the room. *** "Okay, fess up, what happened?" demanded Peter. He had stopped the blood flow from Danny's nose and was careful cleaning the blood from Danny's face while he held the pain in check. "I was supposed to be giving Sebastiano a self defense lesson. She caught me off-guard. Is it broken?" asked Danny. "No, I don't think so, surprisingly. Despite the fact it bled like hell, the lower edge of your eye socket seems

to have caught more of the impact. I'll X-ray it just to be sure, though. You're going to have a major black eye, at least 'til I get it fixed." It would take some healing to tame down the swelling and bruising. "Maybe you should let Sebastiano know she didn't kill me. I think she was kind of upset," said Danny. "Where is she?" "I thought she was over by the door." "Nope," replied Peter. "Well crap. Where'd she go? Maybe I should go look for her." Danny tried to sit up, but Peter put a hand on his chest and prevented him. "You're not going anywhere for the next half hour, while I work on your face. Lie down and don't squirm around. I'll sit on you if I have to," Peter threatened. Danny rolled his eyes. *** Suitcases open on the floor, Jennifer stopped her packing and flung herself on the bed. Tears were streaming down her face and her head was pounding hard enough to make her feel sick. The program was reputed to take an average of ten weeks. She'd been here five. Whatever made her think she could do this? She sobbed into the pillow. Division P may have done the recruiting, but she'd said yes. What the hell had she been thinking? An artist could turn into a "secret agent"? Better to leave now and avoid the humiliation of being told to leave. Christine, the woman who had run the focus session, had been very displeased with Jennifer's performance this morning, even going so far as to express doubts as to why Jennifer had been offered training at all. Nothing this week had really gone right.

And now she'd injured the guy who was supposed to be conducting the combat parts of her instruction. The headache was turning into a full-fledged migraine, and she buried her face deeper against the pillow, trying to block out the light. The nausea was creeping higher too. She barely even heard the knock at the door. Whoever the hell it was could just go the fuck away. She'd be out of their hair as soon as she stopped being curled up in pain. *** There was no answer when Danny knocked on the door to Sebastiano's quarters. He stood there for a moment, thinking. There wasn't any indication she'd gone elsewhere. He put his hand flat on her door, wondering if she was inside. It was an unconscious gesture, not really necessary, just a little physical trigger for his mental quest. She was inside, he could tell, and very, very upset. He had an internal little argument. Psi were a particularly odd group of people as a whole. Most tended toward incredibly strong emotions and unpredictable reactions, but that very sensitivity was a component of what made them capable of what they did. Did she need someone to check on her? Should it be him? Or was that going to compound the problem? He opened his shielding further. She was in pain, physical pain. He made a snap decision and pulled his pass key from his pocket to unlock the door. The inside of her quarters was silent and she wasn't in view in the main den/kitchen area. He walked through into the bedroom. She was curled on the bed, dim late afternoon light filtering through the curtains.

"Sebastiano?" he said softly. She gave no response. "Jennifer?" He walked around to the other side of the bed and knelt down. One arm was up in front of her face and her hands were fisted. He knelt down beside the bed and gently touched her shoulder. Pain was roaring through her and he grimaced at the intensity. Headaches and migraines were a fact of life for many psi. "Go 'way," she mumbled. "I wanted to make sure you were okay." He glanced at the open suitcases and guessed that she was planning on bailing. However, right now, she wasn't going anywhere, except maybe off to see Peter. "You're not. Do you want to go to the clinic or have Peter come to you?" "Le' me alone. Please," she said. He brushed one finger against the back of her hand. Guilt, despair and agony were not a good combination. They made people make stupid choices. "Nope." He picked up the phone at the bedside and dialed the infirmary. Sandra, one of the nurses, answered. "Is Peter still there?" Danny asked. "No. I think he went to the cafeteria." Danny was unsurprised. After doing work on Danny's face, the healer was probably hungry. "See if you can find him. I'm bringing Jennifer Sebastiano back to the infirmary. She has a migraine. A bad one." "Okay, got it." "Come on. Let's go." He gently pulled her up into a seated position. She didn't resist too much. Danny helped her stand and with one arm under her elbow and one arm around her body, he guided her out the door. "You can close your eyes if you want, I won't let you walk into anything." "Deserve it," she muttered.

"No you don't. You gave me a bloody nose and a black eye. Big deal. It's not like you did any permanent damage." *** If someone had informed her that there was a machete protruding from the side of her head, Jennifer would have instantly agreed and said that it went in through her right eye socket and came out at the base of her skull. She could barely open her eyes. This was nothing particularly new. The migraines came without much warning, sometimes several in one week; other times there were weeks or months in between. She had long known that they were tied in some way to the psychic thing. If Danny Valentine hadn't been guiding her along the unfamiliar hallway, she probably would have been inching along, one hand on the wall and the other over her eyes. She couldn't comprehend why he was being nice to her or why he didn't seem to be utterly furious. Not that she was thinking too straight at the moment. "Almost there. Maybe I should have just picked you up and carried you," he said. "Bring her in here," said the voice of the medical guy. Damn, why couldn't she remember his name? Except for seeing him very briefly earlier in the day, she thought she'd met him just the once before. The room she was led into was blissfully dim. "There's a bed right beside you. You can sit down on it. My name's Peter. Seems to me you told me something about being really bad with names when Miko introduced us." Jennifer gingerly sat down and Valentine's hands let go. She almost reached for him. Between the guilt of having hurt him and confusion at his kindness, his arms

supporting and guiding her had been strangely welcome. Peter's hands touched her face and the nausea and pain slid away with such speed, she thought she was going to pass out. Four hands grabbed her, eased her back to lie flat on the bed. The world was gray and spinning, but the pain had seemingly been sucked away. "Just relax. I'm blocking out your pain perception. It's not actually gone. You're just not noticing it. It's going to take me a little while to fix it," said Peter. "Anything you want me to do?" asked Valentine. "No, I'm good. Just pull the door shut on the way out. Oh, and go change your shirt. You look like you murdered somebody." "Yeah, yeah. I got sidetracked. I'll probably check back and see how she's doing in a couple hours." Fingers pressed lightly at various points on her head and face. It was soothing in an odd way. She kept expecting the usual neuro stuff -- somebody peering in her eyeballs with an agonizingly bright light and being asked to touch her nose. All those difficult and irritating things they did to you in the ER. They didn't happen. She was tired, exhausted tired. "Do you want to take a nap? I could nudge things in that direction," offered Peter. "You're the psychic healer." "Yeah, that's me. We're pretty few and far between. I guess you could say I'm top dog on that front around here." "I'm such a fuck-up I don't even know why I'm here," Jennifer whispered. "No you're not. You're having an amazingly shitty day. That happens to all of us. I really do think you could do with some sleep. It's going to take me another hour or so to sort out the migraine thing. "Are you going to give me drugs?"

"Nope. I might if I was slam busy and needed to deal with someone else who was badly injured, but except for Danny's face, I'm having a pretty slow day." Peter chuckled just a little. "I'm sorry I hurt him. I was… mad." The exhaustion was stealing over her, and the room's dim lighting was easy on her eyes. Peter's fingers softly traced a circle on her temple. *** "Is Sebastiano asleep?" Danny poked his head into the infirmary. Peter looked up from his book. "No, not anymore. She slept for about an hour, then I sent her off to the cafeteria. Come here and let me see how your eye and nose are doing." Although he had done some initial healing on the damage, it was nowhere near back to normal. Danny straddled a straight back chair that had been turned and sat down in front of Peter. Peter gently ran his fingertips along Danny's still slightly swollen and bruised nose and eye socket. Danny flinched a little as Peter's touch came to the lower edge of the orbit. "Yeah, that's the spot that took most of the force of the blow." Peter sent a warm tendril of energy into the area, and focused on easing away some more of the bruising, as well as the pain. Danny let out a small sigh. "Better?" "Mmm… yes." "Good, the visible bruising is down to a just a little left near the corner of your eye. By tomorrow it should be barely noticeable." Peter trailed a finger lightly down across Danny's mouth and chin. "No more letting cute chicks haul off and hit you."

Danny gave him a grin. "She is kind of cute isn't she? Especially when she's pissed." *** Jennifer's hands were wrapped around a cup as she sat at a table in the cafeteria. Danny watched her for a moment before he went toward her. "You look more with it than you did earlier," he said, pulling out a chair and sitting down beside her. "Um… yeah." She stared into the cup like she was hoping it would yield the meaning of the universe. "Talk to me. That wasn't a lucky punch. Whatever you did never made it to conscious thought. It was a reflex. You laid me out." Danny tried to make his tone as gentle as possible. She was still too close to spooked. "Eight unwilling years of Aikido. My father thought it would improve my self-discipline and help me control my temper. All it did was give me the ability to make my temper… well, close to lethal. After a couple of years of fumbling my way through class like the complete klutz I am, I stopped trying to think about it. I used to just tune out. God, that makes me sound like I was dropping acid or something. I don't know how I’d do it. I'd just fall into sync with whatever the instructor's body was doing. If the teacher could do it perfectly, so could I. They say muscle memory is deeper than thought. My body knows every move I was ever taught, even if I'd prefer it didn't. When I went to college I stayed away from everything I thought was dangerous. I took up art. It's difficult to hurt somebody with a paint brush. Only I'm not really very good. I can only draw what I see. I can draw the abuser, the rapist, the attacker. I can draw the nightmares that the victims can barely live with." Her fingers were tight around the cup.

He reached out and laid a hand on her wrist. "What we do is hard. What we are is even harder. Making peace with your strengths and limitations is one of the things the training is supposed to help you with." She was still torturing herself; he could feel the angst. "Why aren't you mad as all hell at me?" she asked. "Why should I be? I told you I was going to grab you and I wanted to judge your response. You cleaned my clock. It's not the first bloody nose I've had. I've gotten hurt worse sparring with some of my Marine Corps buddies." She heaved a tiny sigh. Danny felt so sorry for her. Division P training wasn't easy. She seemed to be having a worse time than most, but then she came from one of the least structured career backgrounds. "Is your headache gone?" he asked. "Yeah, Peter's… amazing." "That he is. You up for a drive?" Danny asked. "To where?" "The beach. It takes half an hour or so from here in Suffolk. I think you could do with a little getting away from here." "It's almost midnight," said Jennifer. "So? It's not like you have a curfew." "I guess." *** Virginia Beach's oceanfront was pretty quiet at half past midnight on a Wednesday. Jennifer had to admit, being away from the Division P complex was good. That place had its own sort of isolationist feel despite easy access to all forms of media. Danny and Jennifer walked along the surf edge for a while in silence, just listening to the white noise of the ocean.

If Jennifer had had any reservations about walking alone on the beach of an unfamiliar city in the middle of the night, Danny's tall muscular form would have dispelled them. When he had gone from being an annoyance to feeling like a friend? She must have been broadcasting again, because he reached out and took her hand. If anyone saw them walking on the beach, they would assume he was her boyfriend. The idea amused her a little. Ten years from now, when someone asked her how she met him, she could say that first he gave her shooting lessons and then a couple weeks later she decked him. Yeah, there was going to be a ten years from now, she had a feeling. "You're in a better mood," he said. "Sort of." At least she didn't feel wound quite so tight. He tugged on her hand and drew her up away from the surf line to sit on the sand. She hugged her arms loosely around her knees. "Are you cold?" he asked. "Only a little." She wasn't sure why she was slightly surprised when he scooted back a few inches and swung his leg on the other side of her hips, pulling her back into the "v" of his legs. His arms draped around her body and his chin rested on her shoulder. She caught the image of him kissing her from his thoughts, followed by visions of them having sex in a bed. "It's a suggestion. We don't have to do either," he said softly. "But I can tell you're at least a little curious." She twisted her body and met his mouth. It was a gentle aggression that started out with lips and deepened as her mouth opened to his. His hand cupped against the back of her head and he turned her so that she faced him more directly. Danny laid her back on the sand and braced an elbow so the weight of his body wasn't completely on top of her as his hips snuggled between her legs. The

kiss went on and on and she was enraptured by the taste of his mouth and feel of his lips. Her body was responding to his and she could feel her pulse in intimate places. He finally lifted his head, breathing hard. "Much as I'd like to do this right out here on the beach. One, we might get arrested if the beach patrol cruises by and two, sand in certain parts of the anatomy is not real fun. I speak from personal experience on that front." "Personal experience on this beach?" she asked. Pulling her thoughts together took some doing. "No, actually Iraq. Sand in between your butt cheeks is not a magnificent experience when you only get to shower once a week." She giggled. *** Back at the complex, Danny closed the door of his quarters. His fingers were woven between Jennifer's. He leaned back against the door sensing a certain amount of uncertainty from her. The car drive back to Division P had cooled their arousal. He cupped his hands around her face and looked down into her eyes. "We don't have to do this. I don't want you to feel like this is some sort of penance for what happened earlier today," he said. "I… Technically speaking I work for you I think. Is this going to make… is this going to be way too weird?" she whispered. "No, you don't work for me. More like with me. Yeah, I do some of the training and I organize and debrief and stuff like that, but I'm not really the one in charge. If you hang around here long enough, you'll also find we're a pretty inbred bunch. Psi tends to gravitate to

psi given a choice." Danny wanted her badly, but not at the price of guilt. He'd settle for jerking off alone rather than dump more emotional hurt on her. Of course there was always the possibility he could go crawl in bed with Peter… Oh fuck… Jennifer must have lifted the image of making out with Peter from his head, because she made an odd face. He'd better come clean. That kind of secret would come back to bite you in the ass. "Jen, I… Peter and I are well… friends with benefits. I told you we're a pretty inbred bunch. I go both ways. So does Peter. If that creeps you out I'm sorry." That was as simple he could put it. Peter was his best friend and sometimes they got physical about it. Danny wondered if he should hold his breath and wait for a blast of anger or worse from her. But there was no sense of revulsion, or distaste, more like a sort of confusion for her. "Won't he… get mad? Be hurt?" she asked. "No. There's no strings. If he and I hook up, it's good. If we sleep with someone else that's okay too. Safe sex and all that." That confusion continued. He kissed her softly on the forehead. "You're tired. It's almost two a.m. Maybe we'd better forego this. Are you okay to walk back to your quarters? Or do you want some company?" "I'm fine. It's only one floor down," she said. In another moment she had slipped out the door and he still hadn't quite figured out what her take on his relationship with Peter was. *** Draw it. Get it out of your head, she told herself. Jennifer pulled a sketch pad out of the still partially packed suitcases, and some pencils. Danny and… the healer, Peter. It wasn't like she didn't know a number of

gay couples. She worked in the art community. But Danny hadn't said gay. He'd said "both ways" and she had felt some definite chemistry between Danny and herself, too. She started drawing, watching the images in her head, not the paper. It wasn't until she flipped the fifth page that she stopped and looked. There were all just pencil roughs, but the images were fairly clear and defined. It was all male musculature. Hands on shoulders and hips and genitals. The heavier muscled limbs were Danny. The wiry, almost skinny ones were Peter. The most interesting sketch was Danny's hand cupped against Peter's neck. Somehow it was a tender gesture. It would be amazing to draw them from an exterior point of view… Oh, did she really want to think that? That smacked of some kind of voyeurism. But then, wasn't that pretty damn close to what she did: scoop intimate, often incredibly traumatic, images out of people's heads? She shut the sketchbook and turned off the light beside the bed. Sleep didn't come easily. *** Every time Valentine viewed the accident report, something read as just plain wrong. Putting his finger on what that was… was a lot harder. Bradshaw, on his motorcycle, had been struck by a pickup truck that ran a red light. Okay, that part seemed simple enough, but then he had looked at the sketch of the layout of the intersection. The crossing street was a very low traffic road. The statistical probability of a motorcycle meeting a truck coming from that direction seemed pretty damn low. Then there was the added information that it was a hit and run. The truck had to have been pretty badly

damaged. Danny began searching police databases for any records of stolen pickups. He eventually found one listed as being found abandoned in Portsmouth. It was a fair match to the somewhat vague description provided by a witness plus the doctor who had happened to see it occur. "You looked like you're thinking way too hard," said a voice from the doorway. It was Jennifer. "Mmm, yeah maybe," Danny replied. "You left a message that I should stop by?" "You had a crappy day yesterday. I just wanted to make sure you were doing all right." "I'm fine." "That sounds like a knee jerk response. Okay, this is me in my official role. The goal of the training is not to wash you out. This is not a boot camp or a law enforcement academy or any of that. The goal is to help you refine your psi skills and make them more accurate and more effective. On the practical side, Division P underwent some major changes a few years ago, mostly because too many of our people were getting hurt on the job." "Like mental functioning/psychic injury thing." "No. Some of what we send people out to is physically dangerous. Hurt equaling broken bones, lacerations, and gunshot wounds. All symptoms, so to speak, of inadequate hand to hand combat defense and lack of training in firearms, et cetera." Jennifer grimaced. "I will say a couple of the police stations I've been to have been in really rough neighborhoods." "My point exactly. If you're trained, you can get a concealed weapons permit. On a more personal note, feeling any less stressed than yesterday?"

"Yeah, I guess. This morning went okay. What are you working on? Or am I not allowed to ask?" "One of our finders got badly hurt in a motorcycle versus pickup truck collision. At first I thought it was just one of those of bad luck things. Now I'm having a few doubts. It looks probable that the truck that hit him was stolen." "And?" she pressed. "It was a hit and run." "Meaning they didn't catch the guy who did it." "No. There were a couple of witnesses but no one got a license plate number. The truck was long gone by the time police and EMS got there." "So how do you know the truck was stolen?" Jennifer asked. "I don't. Not for sure anyway. I found a damaged and abandoned truck listed with the Portsmouth police. At least superficially it seems to fit the description." "Can you take a look at it?" "Maybe," said Danny. "Then do it. You can draft one of the people who do the touch thing. Oh what the hell is it called?" "Psychometry." "Yeah. I mean, after all, you're one of the admin people, right?" "Yes, you're right." He had given only a moment's thought to the idea when he found the listing for the truck. "What do you have to lose? If it's the wrong truck or the psychometry person doesn't get anything off it, you're out what, some time and some gas? I'm guessing you don't have to provide convenient excuses for the police. Do they even have to know what you're looking for?"

"No. We have federal jurisdiction. I just really feel a bit like I'm being paranoid. Bradshaw wasn't even actively working the case he was assigned to. They asked him in for a briefing then put him on hold." "Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there's nobody out to get you," she teased. "Or more specifically out to get him." *** The ice pick through her skull made another visit. Jennifer would like to blame the damn focus session exercise. Trying to narrow her psi talent down to pick out tiny details of some random image selected by Christine was annoying and frustrating to begin with. The headache soon blossomed into full-fledged misery. This time the nausea fairy paid a visit too, and Jennifer ended up hugging the toilet, wondering if it was possible for her eyeballs to fall out. As infuriatingly irritating as Jennifer found the woman, Christine was at least a realist. There was no way for Jennifer to continue the exercise. After vomiting up everything but her shoes, Jennifer shuffled her way in the direction of her quarters. She didn't make it very far before some sort of comprehension dawned that maybe Peter could do something for the pain. He had been exceptionally kind to her before. At the very least, he probably had some sort of meds he could give her, because the Excedrin in her room was unlikely to even touch this. Jennifer turned around and headed in the opposite direction. Barely able to open her eyes, she finally made it to the infirmary. Peter was standing beside an exam table talking to a man with crutches in his hand. The patient had some sort of maze of hardware bolted around

his lower leg. She couldn't really focus her vision enough to tell what it was. "You can put a little weight on it, Cam. This does not translate to walking around without the crutches," Peter said to the man. "I think you have another customer. I'll check back tomorrow." Peter turned. "Jennifer? You don't look so good." He crossed the room and carefully guided her to the smaller room she had been in before. He eased her down to lie on the bed, then sat on a stool beside her. "How long ago did it start?" he asked. She felt the warm tingle of his energy damping down the pain, as his hands cupped against her skull. "Maybe a couple hours." "You should have come to find me sooner." "I was too busy worshipping the porcelain god." "Mmm, I noticed there seemed to be a nausea component to this one. You should have asked someone else then to come find me," he said gently. The pain had faded to a fluttering surge of discomfort with each beat of her pulse. Peter's thumb stroked the edge of her eye socket, soothing the pressure there. "What were you doing when it began?" he asked. "Focus stuff with Christine Daniels." "Why am I not surprised? She and I butt heads on a regular basis. She may be really good at her job, but she's also got a sadistic streak. She pushes people too hard." He switched the way his hands lay against Jennifer's head and the pain made a sharp resurgence that drew a little whimper from her. "Sorry, this one's not backing down very easily." His fingers threaded through her hair slightly and traced a slow circling pattern on her scalp. The pain eased off again.

"Can't say I'm too fond of her," whispered Jennifer. One of Peter's hands ran down the side of her neck and across her shoulder. "You've got some serious muscle tension going along with everything else. Roll over on your side." She did so and his hands began working at the back of her neck and shoulders. "Unh, that feels good. If you ever quit Division P, I bet you could make a mint doing massage stuff," she said. "You're not the first person after my magic hands," he replied with a laugh. It took a while. For the first twenty minutes, every time he took his hands off her, the migraine surged forward again, and Peter would try a different tactic. "This thing is being insidiously difficult. I know this probably sounds like a cop-out but I just dumped a massive quantity of energy into Cam Bradshaw, the guy on crutches who was here when you came in, and I'm running toward empty. It might be more effective for me to dose you with something narcotic and give you a little push toward sleep. Is that okay with you?" he said. "Whatever you think, I've had ones that lasted for days. I'd rather not go through that again." "Okay. Try to hang in there while I go get some Dilaudid for you." The knife of pain started creeping back the moment he left. Jennifer curled up a little more and spent a moment holding her breath and telling herself she could deal with it. Peter returned shortly and she barely felt the injection in her hip. "This is going to wreck your shields for a while. That's not something I can prevent, but it's just me here. No one else will touch you, so it shouldn't

bother you too badly." He took her hand in his and gently rubbed her temple with the opposite hand. Jennifer could tell the drug was starting to blur her thoughts and her shields were sliding down into mush. She could feel Peter's hands and the steady presence of his mind grazing against hers. It was gentle and comforting and she could sense a thread of concern. The soft thrum of his energy was sweet and… *** Waking was a bit like swimming up out of wet concrete. There was that sluggish lack of coordination combined with half a thought to just give up and let sleep suck her under again. Jennifer had experienced the whole "med-head" hangover thing before. This time was no different. She climbed slowly out of the hospital bed. The door to the room was ajar a few inches and she started to pull it open the rest of the way, then stopped. The main infirmary room was half office, half ER. Peter sat at a desk on the far side, chair pushed back a little. Danny was sitting on the edge of the desk, with Peter's head lying across his thigh. Danny was rubbing the back of Peter's neck. It was innocent and intimate and gentle. The expression on Danny's face was hopeless adoration. Her fingers twitched and she realized she was unconsciously reaching for a pencil.

Mid-June As Jennifer passed the open door of the infirmary, there was a lot of banging going on. She glanced in the doorway to see Peter Vithoulkas restocking the trauma bay section of the room. He seemed to be in a thoroughly foul mood as he slammed the door of a cupboard and stuffed packages of gauze into a plastic caddy. She was about to tiptoe away when she caught visions of mayhem. A dark haired man curled in a ball, hysterically upset and a woman's body sprawled in death beside an airplane and Danny Valentine's body bleeding on a floor all swirled through Peter's thoughts. Jennifer had enough experience dealing with crime victims to know some of what she saw was real and some was imagination. The problem was that a glimpse didn't really allow her to sort out which was which. Peter was close to distraught, taking his distress out on the tasks he was doing. This late in the evening there were very few people left in the main building. He looked like he could really use someone to vent to, and Jennifer would really like to find out, if possible, whether the image of Danny was real or imagined. She liked Danny and hated to consider the fact he could be dead. "Trying to kill your supplies?" she asked, standing in the doorway. "Huh? No. I'm just trying to get some stuff organized. It's been a shitty day." He was sorting things that she thought look like IV components into a tray, smacking them into place. She saw that visual of Danny again. This one was worse than before. His bloody body lay sprawled nearly lifeless in some unknown place. Jennifer crossed the room and put a hand on Peter's arm.

"Is Danny okay?" she asked, suddenly not sure if she really wanted the answer. "He got shot." Peter spat out. "Is he… Is he going to be okay?" she asked. "Probably! Fuck! I can only guess. He called me and told me the op in Mississippi went to hell in a hand basket and the Navy Intel guy's in critical condition. And Danny was shot, too. When Cam Bradshaw and Mason Flynn were sent home, Danny stayed behind to make sure Rymal made it through surgery. God damn him! He should have come back with them." Peter was on a rant, pacing and yelling. Jennifer let him rage. He finally stopped and leaned against the wall, both hands braced there, acting like he wanted to put his fist through it. Jennifer put her arms around him from behind, hugging his torso, nestling her face between his shoulder blades. He was breathing hard. She could feel his emotional turmoil just washing off of him. "Hit the wall," she said. He stilled somewhat and she felt the some of the rage replaced by confusion. "Hit the wall," she repeated. He thumped his fist against the wall without much force behind it. "Again." He was motionless for a second then he hauled off and smashed his fist into the wall hard enough to dent to drywall. "Ow. Ow." He muttered grimacing and flexing his fingers. She turned him to face her. "God, that was stupid," he said, still shaking his hand. "Yuh-huh. And it made you feel a little better too, didn't it?" She gave him a smile. He looked embarrassed. "Yeah." His answer was slow. He still looked stressed, but the emotion leaned in the direction of grief. She hugged him to her body and pulled his head down

to her shoulder. His arms slid around her slowly, and he swallowed hard. "Okay, now with a little more objectivity. Just the facts. How bad is he hurt?" she said. Peter heaved a shaky breath and raised his head to look at her. "According to him, the bullet passed through his upper arm, through the muscle. He said he lost some blood and it hurts like hell. How much of that is downplayed for my benefit? I don't know." "Did he go to the hospital?" "Yeah. He went there after they took Rymal. He's a hard-headed fool, but he's not a complete moron." "So somebody looked after him and he's probably not in serious danger." "Probably." It was a flat, resigned, and dubious answer. Jennifer cupped her hands around his face. She could see some of the allure Peter held for Danny. The man was passionate and caring and had a real temper. That made him just a little like her. "I'm worried about his psi shock risk, too,” Peter griped. "What's that?" "People who are psi are wired different than the rest of the population. We tend to hyper-react to trauma more often than not. It can wreak havoc with your nervous system, give you cardiac arrhythmias, and tank your blood pressure, just all sorts of potentially life threatening problems." "Is it going to happen to Danny?" she asked. "If he was with it and coherent enough to call me, probably not. Asshole," Peter muttered. "When's he coming back?" she asked. "Tomorrow." "And then you'll be able to check him out and make sure he's okay," she said. Peter nodded. She could tell he was still deeply worried. "I saw an entire bookcase full

of DVDs in the common area. I bet we could find something mindless to watch, and maybe take your mind off fretting about him for a little while." He agreed, reluctantly. *** The common area backed up to the cafeteria. It resided in a complex of buildings where personnel came and went on erratic schedules. Sometimes people stayed only for a few days. Some stayed for a number of weeks, like Jennifer, during training. There was a need for social space. Only slightly more than a dozen people lived at Division P on a permanent basis. Peter and Danny were some of those few. Jennifer and Peter settled on one of the big sofas with the plasma screen turned on. Buckaroo Banzai was in the DVD player. There was no one else around and they sat in near darkness, only the light from the hallway shining into the big room. Peter was pathetically grateful for Jennifer's presence. Being alone and worrying would be worse. He'd probably still be back in the infirmary slamming drawers and trying to take out his angst on restocking tasks. He was sort of retrospectively amused by her telling him to hit the wall. And he was still tied in ten knots, imagining Danny curled up in some bed in Mississippi in pain and by himself. Jennifer's arm crept around his shoulders. "So who takes care of the healer?" she asked. Peter didn't know how to answer that. He just shook his head. Jennifer pulled him into a soft kiss. It was all tenderness, and Peter found himself clinging to her. Holding her helped to ease the misery of worrying about Danny just a little.

"You make a good teddy bear," he whispered, burying his face against her shoulder. The movie played on in the background as they stretched out on the sofa. Her hands wandered in little circles on his scalp and down his back as he lay with his arms wound around her. Exhaustion settled on him like a ten-ton elephant and he fell asleep. *** The body pressed up against his was all soft curves and long hair and very female. That definitely ruled out Danny Valentine. Peter woke disoriented. He wasn't in his quarters or even the infirmary. It took a couple more seconds to process the memory of falling asleep with Jennifer on the wide sectional sofa of the common area. It was not quite dawn. The sky outside the window had only lightened by a few shades. Jennifer was snuggled between him and the sofa back, one leg tangled with his and one arm around his body. His slight movement must've woken her. "Wha' time is it?" she mumbled. "Uh… 5:15," he answered, squinting at his watch. Having her breasts gently squashed against his chest and her thigh wedged between his legs was distracting, in an embarrassingly arousing sort of way. Peter could feel his cock responding to the delicious feminine presence. This was one of those times when he wished he gave a shit about baseball. Jennifer snickered. Oh hell, he wasn't shielding worth a damn either apparently. And neither was she. He kissed her. It seemed like a good thing to do, especially since half the blood in his body was heading away from his brain. Her mouth opened to his and her response was damn near as close to uncontrolled lust as

his own. For a good minute or so he gave up any pretense of not wanting her, badly, before reality crept back in. "We oughta get up," he mumbled against her lips. "Mmm yeah…" Her tone was a sigh. "I didn't mean to fall asleep on you," he apologized, untangling himself enough to sit up. "It's okay. I think you needed some unwinding." "I ought to go see if I can find out if they're sending Danny home on a Navy flight or a commercial one." "Let me know too, okay?" "Sure." Peter ran his fingers back through his hair. A shower and some fresh clothes would be a good idea, too. Jennifer kissed him lightly on the temple and left. *** You moron, you need to make up your mind, Jennifer berated herself. First she was practically ready to hop in bed with Danny. A week later, she was making out on the sofa with Peter. You don't get to have them both. In all probability, you don't get to have either one. Jennifer had just gotten out of the shower and she was combing her wet hair so she could braid the three foot length of it. There was obvious attraction between the two men, and only half of it was sexual. You didn't get that bent out of shape when the guy you were screwing got hurt if that's all there was to it. And nobody got that puppy eyes look of absolute adoration that Danny had unless there was some pretty strong emotion behind it. God in heaven, leave it to two guys to fuck up their lives because they were too blind to see the love they had for each other. Okay then, maybe that was her karmic destiny in all this. Bang their heads together and get them to realize what they had.

*** The first available seat on a flight back to Norfolk was economy class. When you were six foot four, it didn't really even come close to comfortable. Add to that the heavy throbbing agony of the bullet wound in his arm and Danny was in pure misery. The sole saving grace of the whole thing was the flight was only a couple hours long. Somebody from P was picking him up from the airport. He wasn't sure who. Walking down the long carpeted corridor from the gate, backpack dangling from one hand, other arm in the sling, it was a trudge that felt like a mile. Coming out through security he saw Peter heading straight for him. Peter grabbed the backpack from his hand and guided him toward one of the metal and plastic chairs bolted to the floor in the center atrium. "You idiot! Why didn't you ask for a wheelchair!?" Peter demanded, easing Danny down into a seat. "My feet work just fine," Danny complained. "Yeah, and that's why you look like you can barely put one foot in front of the other!" Peter was down on one knee in front of Danny, one hand on Danny's wrist. The wash of energy from the healer was heaven, wiping out the pain in Danny's arm. Unfortunately all the fatigue surged into the void and Danny felt like he wanted to curl up on the airport floor and sleep. "You want me to go hunt for a wheelchair?" a female voice asked. Danny realized that Jennifer Sebastiano was standing about three feet away. "I brought her with me because I wasn't sure if I could drive and take care of you at the same time," said Peter. "I think it's probably a good thing I did."

"I can walk. Or didn't you just see me doing so about two minutes ago?" Danny complained. "Wheelchair, yes or no?" Jennifer said. "Yes," said Peter. It was overlaid with a "No" from Danny. "God damn it. I can walk to the freakin' parking lot," snapped Danny. Peter rolled his eyes and sighed as he helped Danny to his feet. It was another long trek out to the short term parking and Danny almost wished he had agreed to the wheelchair. He slid into the back seat of the car. "You drive," Peter said, handing keys to Jennifer and he got into the back on the opposite side. "Will you stop acting like I'm about to drop dead!" Danny grumbled. Peter scowled at him. "I swear I'm going to bang both your heads together," said Jennifer. She had a thoroughly exasperated look on her face. "The two of you are being pretty fucking dense!" Danny just looked at her, confused. "Kiss him, you ass," she said to Peter. "Kiss him and tell him that you were insanely worried about him. Danny, you need to stop the macho bullshit and let him take care of you. I need to pee. I'll be back in five minutes." She stalked off in the direction of the terminal building. Danny looked at Peter. The man looked about as shocked by Jennifer's tirade as he was. Then Peter kissed him. One hand behind his head, one arm around his body, pulling Danny tight against his body, the kiss was needy and desperate and laced with grief. Danny let all his shielding fall away and drowned himself in the care of his lover. The energy from the healer crawled through his body like a slow motion electrocution and soothed the bone deep ache in his arm. He leaned into the embrace further and there was some awkward fumbling

while Peter slid a leg behind Danny's hips along the seat back and hauled Danny closer so he could wrap both arms around him. The kiss deepened as Peter plunged his tongue into the recesses of Danny's mouth. Danny had always known Peter's emotions burned hot, that was part of the attraction, but this bordered on ferocious. When Peter finally lifted his head a bit, he whispered against Danny's mouth. "If you had gotten hurt as badly as Rymal I would have moved heaven and earth to get to you. God, I could have lost you." "I'm okay, just a little banged up." Danny trailed his fingers along Peter's cheek. He could feel the burn of suppressed tears in Peter. "Having a bullet pass through your arm doesn't qualify as a little banged up!" Jennifer got back into the car in the driver's seat. "Somebody's going to have to give me directions on how to get back out to the highway." *** Peter stopped by the infirmary long enough to grab a tote full of supplies for changing the dressing on Danny's arm, then they went to his quarters. In the bedroom, Peter eased Danny's arm out of the sling and stripped him of his shirt. After removing the heavy bandage from Danny's right arm, he could see the damage. An hour or two of healing would go a ways toward repair of the injury. As Peter took off his own shirt and settled on the bed beside Danny, he thought about the events of the airport parking lot. Jennifer had forced them to face a little home truth. They were colleagues and friends and sometimes screwed each other senseless, and somewhere along the way, a line had been crossed.

He loved Danny, loved him in a way that would have left him absolutely devastated if Danny had been killed. Danny had a job to do. Sometimes that job was just a nightmare of paperwork, and sometimes it put him in the field and in the line of fire. Peter stretched out on the bed beside Danny and pulled his lover into his arms. He turned his healing Talent loose, something he rarely did, and felt it rushing through his veins like water through a high pressure pipe. Danny made a sharp little gasp, obviously not expecting the force behind the energy. "Pete, hon?" Danny whispered. "Just fucking shut up and let me do this." He sealed his mouth over Danny's in a brief, heated, desperate kiss. Danny nodded slightly, eyes closed. The heat generated by Peter's body was a side effect of the healing, and fifteen minutes later he was filmed in sweat like he had been sprinting. He loosened his hold on Danny a little and lay still, waiting for his body to slow down. Danny ran a gentle finger across Peter's lips. "I know you somehow think you needed to do that, but it worries me when you feel like you're about to spontaneously combust." His hand continued down over Peter's chin and throat coming to rest on the sweat slick skin of Peter's chest. "I'm okay," Peter whispered. "I had to make sure you were… I love you. If you had died…" Oh fucking hell, here came all the tears that he had tried so hard to avoid. Peter buried his face against Danny's shoulder and gulped hard, straining to choke down the emotion. Danny hugged him closer and began to softly kiss along Peter's temple. "I know. I love you too. I'm sorry I stressed you out. All last night I wished you were there. Partly because I'm a selfish ass and I knew you could take away the

pain. Partly because… the op went scary bad. We all could have been very dead." Okay, that was the tipping point. Peter began to sob. He was tempted to haul off and punch Danny. The man knew fucking well exactly what emotional button he was pushing when he said that to Peter. It was also something of a relief. Leave it to an empath to know how to invoke a breakdown. "Damn you, Danny!" Peter choked out between sobs. He pushed his fist against Danny's chest a little. "God damn you! You bastard!" Peter sobbed, not meaning a single word except in the way the fear of losing Danny was tearing at his heart. Peter buried his face in his lover’s chest and stopped fighting the emotion. Danny just laid there holding him, rubbing his back and whispering a little litany of reassurances. When Peter finally got himself under control again, he had to grope for tissues to blow his nose. Feeling exhausted, he sagged forward, lying on top of Danny, delivering a sloppy poorly aimed kiss that landed more on Danny's chin than his mouth. Danny made a sound of contentment. Peter dragged the blankets up over them. As they lay curled beneath the sheets, Peter's arms wound around Danny's neck and he hugged his lover's face to his collar bone, nuzzling into the Danny's hair. Danny's arms were in turn wrapped around Peter's torso, the injured one carefully draped over top of Peter's rib cage. "Jennifer has a point," whispered Peter. "We've been avoiding the obvious. We've kind of had a thing for each other since Kosovo. I've been lying to myself." "She often seems to have a point. She's a handful."

"Unh, I'd like that handful squished right down between the two of us..." Peter mused sleepily. Danny just laughed. *** Jennifer knew she was going to have to pass the firing range proficiency test eventually, so now was as good a time as any to try and get some practice in. She didn't expect to find Danny there. Several boxes of shells lay on the bench in front of him, and he was methodically firing at the target that hung at the far end of the range. When the current clip was empty, he laid the gun down and braced one hand on the bench, injured arm dangling as he tried to flex his fingers. "I have a strong suspicion Peter is going have your ass in a sling when he finds out what you've been doing." Obviously startled, Danny whirled to look at her. Slowly, he relaxed and pulled his ear protection off, leaving it hanging around his neck. "You may be right." "Any specific reason you're in here torturing yourself?" "'Cause no matter what I do lately,it invariably seems like I fucked up." "Spill. Why?" "I stayed in Meridian because I wanted to make sure Ethan Rymal was going to make it. In doing so, Cam Bradshaw nearly got executed by a psycho. If it wasn't for a buddy of his named Mason Flynn and a hefty dose of sheer fucking dumb luck, Bradshaw would be dead. Of course on top of this, Flynn is practically traumatized for life, 'cause the guy's a doctor and a healer and he killed somebody. Christ… Maybe if I had been there…

shit… I don't know. Maybe it would have worked out better." "When'd you find all this out?" she asked. "This morning." "Oh. Hence the reason you're in here blasting away and hurting your arm," she said. He looked somewhat embarrassed. "Yeah… I guess." He cradled his injured arm against his chest and wiggled his fingers. Judging from the face he made, it must have hurt like hell. "Anything that makes you look like you're trying to decide between screaming or passing out is bad. How 'bout I walk with you to the infirmary so you don't end up unconscious and face down on the floor somewhere?" "It's not that bad. It just hurts." "Uh-huh, and the national debt is just pocket change, too. Come on," she said. Danny rolled his eyes a little but went with her. Walking down the hallway, he said, "This is heading toward being a habit." "What, me dragging you off to Peter?" "Yeah." "At least it's not my fault this time," said Jen. Danny managed a chuckle. When they got to the infirmary, Peter was on the phone. He made a gesture indicating he would be with them in a couple of minutes. Danny sank into a chair, his injured arm in his lap. Jennifer lingered. She was intent on making sure Danny didn't skate out before Peter had a chance to have a look. When Peter hung up, he came across the room and frowned at Danny. "So where the hell's your sling?" the healer demanded. "In my quarters. It didn't hurt that bad."

"Didn't, as in past tense? What stupid ass thing did you do now?" Peter snapped. Danny glared at him. "I found him in the firing range," offered Jennifer, more than happy to rat Danny out. Jesus God, testosterone poisoning all the way. "Oh that's just brilliant. Less than forty-eight hours after a bullet passes through your arm, you're off doing something that sends shock waves through your muscles and bones every time you pull the trigger," growled Peter. He laid one hand on Danny's shoulder and skimmed the fingers of the opposite hand down over the bulge of the bandage protruding from the edge of Danny's sleeve. "You've managed to undo some of the healing I put into it last night. The radial nerve is close to the bullet path. Although the nerve isn't severed, it did receive some trauma. You have to lay off using it and let it recover, or you're going to end up with permanent damage that even I can't fix!" Danny looked slightly worried. "I'm going to go see if I have an immobilization sling. Don't move. Jennifer, sit on him if you have to. I'll be back in a few minutes." Peter strode out of the infirmary. "You are in deep kim chee with your partner," observed Jennifer. Danny blew out a breath and ran his good hand back through his hair. "I think you may be right. Shit… I didn't do this on purpose. I was mad. I figured I was better off taking it out on the range rather than somebody else. I didn't think it would hurt this much." Jen could sense the guilt and embarrassment swirling with the pain. She leaned over and gave him a careful hug. "So suck it up and apologize for doing something dumb. He cares about you. It doesn't make him any less pissed, it just makes it understandable," she replied.

Danny had wrapped one arm around her hips and leaned his head on her stomach. It was an oddly tender unspoken plea for comfort. Jennifer had the sudden desire to hold him until Peter got around to doing something about the pain, but that made her wonder if Peter would see the gesture in the wrong way. She was still trying to sort the idea out when Peter returned with the sling in his hands. "This will not only support the arm, it will immobilize it against your body," said Peter. He glanced at Danny, who was practically clinging to Jennifer. "That bad, huh?" "It hurts almost as bad as when I got to the ER," Danny muttered. Peter snagged a stool from beside the exam table and sat down on it. The healer gently curled one hand around the bandage and the other against Danny's shoulder. As Peter shut down the pain, Jennifer felt Danny's head sag more heavily against her. "I have a meeting with Stephen in about fifteen minutes and then one with Bottman and one of the recruiting people at three o'clock. And somewhere in between I ought to check on Bradshaw and Flynn. So, as much as I really don't like doing this, I'm going to dose you up with Dilaudid for the pain and put you in the sling. And if Jen is up for it, she's going to be your shadow and kick your ass if you misbehave," said Peter. "I'm supposed to have another training session with Christine in an hour." Not that she was really in the mood for another round with that woman. "I'll give her a buzz and tell her I need you for the afternoon," said Peter. "Unless you'd rather..." He left the idea dangling. "No. It's okay. I know I should be into the focus training thing but there are days…"

"If you're strapping my arm to my chest, exactly how am I supposed to get my paperwork done this afternoon? Or for that matter, go to the bathroom," Danny complained. "I'm sure you'll figure something out." Peter spent another couple minutes working on Danny before giving him the pain killer. Jennifer retreated to a nearby chair, and watched as Peter put Danny's arm in a sling that was then subsequently bound to his body with a separate pair of straps. "I hate the way this stuff makes me feel," said Danny. "It's that or the pain," commented Peter. Danny gave him a resigned glare. Peter ignored him, and turned to face Jennifer. "Keep an eye on him. He's liable to be pretty looped from the meds. I'll work on undoing the damage later. In the meantime he's just going to have to deal with it." "I have a question," Jennifer said, mystified by Peter's obvious and implicit trust in her to deal with his cranky patient. "Shoot," replied Peter. "What makes you think I'm going to be any good at babysitting him?" "He pissed you off. You decked him. Today you obviously brow beat him enough to make him come here to the infirmary. It's not like I don't think he's going to be an absolute pain in the ass the rest of the afternoon, but if push comes to shove I think he'll back down if you tell him he's doing something stupid. If he doesn't, I'm going to give him an attitude adjustment." Peter gave Jennifer a little evil grin. "I'm not deaf, you know," groused Danny. "Good. I gotta go. I'll probably be stuck in meetings the rest of the afternoon. I want both of you to meet me

in my quarters at five. We'll figure out something dinner-wise. Maybe I'll cook." With that, Peter left. *** Sitting at his desk trying to one-handedly reply to a raft of email was like being on a slow tilt-a whirl, Danny decided. Dilaudid dampened the agony in his arm down to a background annoyance level, but the trade-off was dizziness, brain-fog and a total lack of shielding. Blissfully, the only other person in the room was Jennifer. She was sitting in a chair with a pad in her lap, drawing something. He wondered momentarily what it was she was sketching, then tried to return his focus back the computer. "You know, if you dictate, I can type. I won't set any speed records but I do have two hands," Jennifer said. Danny considered the concept for a minute. "Yeah, that might be a good idea. The one-handed thing is driving me crazy." They rearranged the chairs so that she was in front of his desk and he was beside her, gazing over her shoulder. "Open the one forwarded from Bottman, it looks like an assignment request." "What's an assignment request?" "It has to do with me deciding if and who to send out on a job. The other government agencies and military tend to view Division P as a sort of last ditch desperation plea. Most of them consider us a bunch of serious crackpots, so sometimes the requests for assistance that we get are pretty bizarre. Bottman usually weeds out the really whacked ones; the rest get fielded to me or Steve Milbourne. He handles roughly the western half of the U.S. and I handle the eastern half. Overseas ops usually get dumped in my lap, too."

"Interesting. Obviously, you spend some time in the field, too." "Yeah, that part has its good and bad points." Danny made a gesture at the sling. Jennifer gave him a rueful smile. They spent the next hour hacking through the e-mail before meds, exhaustion and the aftermath of the previous couple of days all began to catch up with Danny. Jennifer's shoulder looked like an awfully inviting place to rest, so he leaned his head sideways onto her shoulder and closed his eyes. "Danny? You're not going to pass out on me, are you? 'Cause there's no way I can pick you up off the floor," asked Jennifer. He could feel the wash of her concern. "Pass out, no. Fall asleep, maybe," admitted Danny. "Maybe I should shoo you in the direction of your quarters, and tuck you in bed." "Peter's place. He claimed he might cook dinner." God, she smelled good. Danny rolled his head so that his face was not quite buried against her collar bone. Jennifer smelled faintly of something sweet and fruity and feminine. It was delicious in a sort of comforting way and he thought falling asleep with his face pressed into the softness of her breasts and Peter's lithe muscular body spooned against his back would be a died and gone to heaven moment. Then he felt Jennifer flinch just a little. Shit. Here he was practically stoned out of his mind on meds, daydreaming of some version of a three-way and forgetting that the woman involved could see the mental image as clearly as if he was the one drawing the picture. She cleared her throat a little before she spoke. "Maybe you ought to get Peter's opinion on that concept. Inviting me to have dinner with the two of you

is just a little bit different from inviting me to share your bed," she said. "Ask him. I know you two shared a moment when he was stressing over me getting shot." Oh, there was a hint of guilty pleasure from her when he said that. "And we got pretty close that night on the beach. Anyway, right at the moment I'm more interested in the sleep part regarding us and bed, than anything else." Danny let his head droop a little more heavily against her shoulder. *** Jennifer slouched in an easy chair, barely watching some talk show on TV. Danny had crashed on Peter's sofa and was asleep. She looked at the way his free hand was balled into a fist and the tight way his body was curled and suspected that whatever pain stuff Peter had given him was wearing off. Her thoughts fiddled with the visual she had seen in Danny's head, and the idea. Ménage a trois was a risqué idea. She was enough of an adult to know that the porn industry fueled the fantasy of one man and two women, but two guys and one woman? Okay, that was a little different. The added information that she knew both the guys were into each other, seemed to add another twist. Would any woman do? Was it just the idea of sharing a sex partner that floated Danny's boat? Except the image had not really been about sex. It was about sleep and comfort. "That's quite a handful of ideas," said Peter, squatting down beside her chair. She jerked, startled, having not heard him come into the apartment. "It's freakin' rude to go poking around inside other people's heads."

Peter smiled at her. "It's what we do. Anyway, my intention was to scope out how Danny's doing and your line of thought kind of grabbed my attention." "It wasn't my thought. Okay, that's not exactly what I meant. Danny's the one who was thinking about being in bed between you and me… and I'm really digging a deep hole here aren't I?" Jennifer stared at the ceiling in acute embarrassment. Peter tipped her face back down with a finger on her chin. "It's cute when you're flustered." "Gee, thanks," she said. He wrapped his fingers around her hand. "So why was Danny entertaining ideas of the three of us?" "He was tired and hurting and feeling like crap, and I guess it just popped into his head as one of those 'geez wouldn't that be awesome' random thoughts. Listen it's just daydreamy sort of shit. I wouldn't get between you two." He pressed two fingers against her lips. "Did you ever stop to think we might like the concept of you between us?" he asked. Jennifer was sure her eyes must have bugged a little. "Danny and I have a thing. You were right about that, we've been avoiding the fact that it goes way deeper than just sex. How much deeper, we're still working that out. But you fit into this picture, too. You have this… unconventional approach that makes us both face up to ideas we tend to avoid." "Unconventional? Usually I get accused of being hottempered, flaky and non-P.C." Jennifer replied. "I like you just the way you are." Peter stood up and put a knee between her legs against the chair cushion. He leaned down and planted a soft kiss on her mouth. It surprised her. Maybe Danny was right in suggesting that Peter didn't have a problem with sharing. "I'm going to

check on Danny. Feel free to go hunt through my kitchen and see if you have any bright ideas regarding dinner." *** Peter knelt down beside the sofa where Danny was sprawled asleep. God damn it, he should have insisted the idiot spend the day in bed. He should have known that Danny would try to tough his way through the day as if nothing was wrong, rather than doing the bare minimum and giving his arm a chance to heal a little. Peter laid his hand gently on Danny's chest and let his senses explore. There was pain, inflammation around the nerves near the wound and some overall exhaustion. Not great, but nothing critical. Peter sent a soft surge of energy into his lover's body and damped down the pain. Beneath his hand, he felt Danny relax a little deeper into sleep. All right, that would do for a few minutes, though eventually he was going to have to wake Danny up and herd him off to bed. Peter walked into the narrow galley kitchen. Jennifer was peering into the refrigerator. "I think you said something about volunteering to cook?" she said. "I will. I'm just bad at trying to decide what to fix." "Wimp," she replied. Peter gave a snort of laughter. "You in the mood for spaghetti?" he asked. "I have some sauce in the cupboard." "I suppose. Stuff out of a jar never lives up to the hype." "With a name like Sebastiano, I'm guessing there's some heavy-carb, rib-sticking food in your background."

"Oh yeah, if Mom was in the mood it was homemade ravioli and marinara sauce with Italian sausage in it. And garlic knots with enough garlic to smell them a block away. Oh man, now I'm hungry." "Do you cook?" Peter asked. "Well, enough not to starve." *** The three of them lingered over dinner, talking about food and restaurants and cooking. Danny fidgeted repeatedly, trying to find a position that made his arm ache less, all the while trying to stay under Peter's radar. He was enjoying the conversation and Jennifer's presence. "I absolutely suck at making pie crusts. My mother can make them without rubbing two brain cells together, and they're awesome. Mine tend to come out soggy and gummy," Jennifer said. "Note on the calendar. Do not ask Jen to bring pies on Thanksgiving unless she buys them." Peter drew in the air with his finger. "And you," he pointed a finger at Danny. "Unless you're doing an imitation of a preschooler doing the pee-pee dance, you are busted." He reached across the table and curled his fingers around Danny's wrist. Danny felt the flood of warmth creeping up his arm soothing the pain. "Time to get back to what I put off this afternoon. Bed." "Guess that's my cue to leave," said Jennifer. "Don't," said Danny. He glanced at Peter for back up. "Stay. I wasn't planning on jumping him, at least not tonight," Peter said. "It would be nice to have you hang around." "Um…" Jennifer seemed awfully hesitant. "Please," Danny pleaded.

In the bedroom, Danny endured having the restraining sling stripped off along with his shirt. Peter turned the radio on low in the background as Danny lay down. He crooked a finger at Jennifer and beckoned her to sit where he could lay his head in her lap. Peter sat cross-legged at Danny's side so he could have direct access to Danny's injury. Danny took Jennifer's hand in his and rubbed his thumb across her palm, that intimate little psi gesture that touched a hand chakra.. He was tired and but for Peter's ministrations would probably be hurting, and still he wanted her. Having her this close was really nice. She was very still. He bumped his mind gently against her shielding, seeking an entrance. She was hesitant, only gradually letting him in. He could feel her conflict, curiosity banging heads with a conservative guilt. He sucked on her fingertips and breathed against her palm. He was playing, wondering if he could stir up the flame that had flared between them that night on the beach. His own shielding down, he noticed the warm energy of Peter's healing change tone. There was a hint of arousal from him running as an undercurrent. "Dan, babe, you're being a distraction," said Peter. "You're making me have second thoughts about not jumping you." Danny raised an eyebrow, "Babe?" he said incredulously. "You have a problem with that?" "I don't think I've had anybody call me babe since I was about fifteen," replied Danny. This sparked giggles from Jennifer. Danny turned his head and closed his teeth on the front of Jennifer's shirt, pulling it up. She was still laughing as he reached his free arm back and dragged her down to sprawl on the

bed beside him. Her head was near his thigh and his arm was under her hips. Her legs had wiggled in the opposite direction and hung halfway off the bed. He closed his teeth on the curve of her behind, just hard enough that she had to feel the pressure through her jeans. She let out a squeal. He hauled her body up on top of his, turning his head to duck his face under her squirming legs. This put her face damn near level with his crotch and his head between her thighs. He bit down on her inner thigh, exhaling against the thick fabric. "No!" she squealed in between giggles. "Really?" he asked, giving her a chance to call their playful wrestling match off if she was actually too uncomfortable with the idea. She paused for about one full second, before saying, "Do not stop." She paid him back by nipping at his now hard cock. He let out a groan. "You know I'm feeling distinctly left out of this," groused Peter. "Lay on top of her, we'll make a girl sandwich. Oh God, fuck, Jen, you're torturing me!" Danny moaned. She was rubbing and biting him through his slacks and he felt like he was about thirty seconds from just flat out blowing his load. Peter's hand slipped between Danny's chin and Jen's spread legs, pressing up between her thighs. Danny snickered a little at the sudden increase of tension in Jen's body. Danny changed tactics. He let go of his grip on Jennifer's hips and stretched his hand up over his head where Peter was kneeling. His cupped his hand up under Peter's balls, feeling Peter's half arousal, and began to tease him, too. Damn, he wished he had two working hands, but every flex of his injured arm brought a shiver of pain, only half damped by Peter's now distracted mind. Danny gave into the exquisitely pleasurable

sensations at his groin, bucking into the rubbing and gnawing warmth of Jen's mouth. Everything let loose, a full body shudder and surging sticky heat. The nicely padded squirming body on top of his stilled for a moment, then her knees pushed harder on his shoulders as she ground against Peter's hand. Danny's hand fumbled at Peter's belt and zipper, only getting it open with help from Peter. Closing his hand around Peter's hot prick, he stroked his lover, all the while feeling the build from Jen. Peter was almost there, too. Danny reveled in the combined wave of pure lust. A little whimper from Jen preceded her jerky release and she gasped against Danny's hip. Two down, one to go. Danny scooted back a little and managed to squirm out from under Jen just enough to take Peter's cock in his mouth. Lapping across the tip and then sucking it, Danny tipped Peter over the edge, swallowing hard, as his lover came in his mouth. They all sagged into a tangle of arms and legs with Jennifer sliding sideways to lie parallel to the headboard. "You okay? I didn't bang into your arm, did I?" Peter slurred a little. "No, it's fine…" Danny answered. "Jen?" "Unh, what? Think my brain's off-line," was her mumbled reply. Danny chuckled a little. "Next time, there needs to be less clothes involved," said Peter. "Next time?" asked Jennifer. "Yeah, next time. 'Cause anything this good has to be revisited," concluded Danny. ***

"So how's the forensic course thing going?" Jennifer's mother asked over the phone. Jennifer had told her parents a partial truth about how she was spending her summer. She had spun a tale of a special, invitation-only seminar for forensic sketch artists to help refine her technique and talents. Okay, it wasn't a total lie: that was the primary goal of Division P's training. It just happened to be a lot more specialized and profoundly weirder than that. "Fine, Mom. Kind of grueling but good." "Meet anybody nice?" Jennifer rolled her eyes and stared at the ceiling of her room for a moment. Oh Lord, how could she even begin to explain to her very Catholic mother her attraction to two separate men who also had their own relationship? "Most everybody's been friendly and very helpful," Jennifer replied. "Any nice single men?" "Mom, I'm not here to find a husband." "I know, but you need to look a little harder. You're almost thirty. The biological clock is ticking, honey," her mother said. "We've had this discussion before. If children never end up being part of my life, that's okay. On the other hand if you're so hot to have a grandchild, maybe I should find a willing sperm donor." "Jennifer! You were raised better than that!" "Yeah well, virginity went out the window about ten years ago." "I do not want to hear how bad you've been. When's the last time you went to confession?" "About eight months ago," Jennifer admitted. "Your father would be horrified if I told him." "Dad's pretty horrified by my entire life. He thinks I belong barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen."

"He does not. He thinks you have a very respectable job teaching at the college. He just thinks you ought to focus on that and stay away from all the horrifying things that people tell you about the crimes they've suffered," her mother replied. "I help people, Mom. I help make sure that bad people pay for what they've done. Listen, I have to go, class is about to start up again." Jennifer hung up and flopped back on her bed. Her mother often got on her last nerve, but talking to her narrow-minded overbearing father was worse. There was actually another hour before she had to be anywhere else. Her mind returned to the thoughts she had mostly avoided when talking to her mother. What exactly did she want to do about Peter and Danny? Was her desire to get involved with them just another hard headed rebellion against her family's conservative values? God knows, better than fifty percent of what she had done with her life over the past decade had been a direct and intentional defiance against them. But, in retrospect, she liked what she did, all of it. The teaching, the forensics, her stabs at original artwork. She hadn't lied when she told her mother that she helped people. Division P would make her better at that, and give her some nice federal backing, too. Glancing at the clock, Jennifer decided maybe she'd go grab a soda from the cafeteria before the dreaded session at telepathic word retrieval. *** "See you next week," said Peter as Mason Flynn left. He watched the tall surgeon walk out the door. For a doctor with precious little formal psi training, Flynn was

impressive. Raw Talent that strong rivaled Peter's own. The guy might even eventually surpass him. Peter swiveled his chair back to face his desk, trying to make up his mind what to do with his evening. With his arm back to near normal by way of Peter's care, Danny had gone to Chicago for a few days to check on the progress of one of the newer agents. There were no other pressing crises at the moment and Peter was at loose ends. He found himself thinking of Jennifer. It had been a couple of weeks since the three of them had messed around the night Danny got home. That had been a delightfully memorable experience. Although they had all had dinner together several times since then, the interaction had mostly been confined to flirting, kissing and a little groping. Danny and Peter had agreed that they wouldn't push too hard, while they gave Jen some time to decide how she felt about something more intense. Tonight might be a good opportunity to take her out to eat, away from the complex, and find out how much thought she'd given to the idea. *** She-crab soup, salad, and prime rib… Jennifer struggled to decide if she dared do dessert. On the table, where her hand lay, Peter played with her fingers. It was sexy and comfortable. She could feel just a hint of his mind brushing against hers; neither of them was unshielded in such a public place. "When Danny gets back from Chicago, I think all three of us should make a night of it," Peter said. "Mmm, dinner and dancing?" she replied, deliberating avoiding the implication. "I was thinking naked in bed."

Jennifer smiled. The thought was alluring. Peter rubbed his thumb along the center of her palm. Except for a kiss, it was about as intimate a gesture as he could make here. "I know you keep holding back. The offer is not intended to be a one time wild night never do it again thing. With Danny and me, it started out physical and became a lot more. You're the one who pushed us into realizing it was more. It feels right to me to make you part of my life, in the same way Danny's part of it, too," he finished. She sat looking at his hand holding hers, for a long moment. "Can three people make it work? Sometimes even two have issues." "I won't promise there won't be times when we drive each other round the bend, or that we won't ever fight, but inventing problems before they show up is awfully fatalistic. You come from a big family right?" "Yeah, you could say that. I have four brothers. The long standing joke is that my parents kept having kids until they finally got a girl." "I'm an only. My dad died when I was a teenager. My mother died four years ago. I suppose you could define me as someone who wants people to love. Being bisexual used to seem like a mixed blessing; these days I think maybe I'm not supposed to choose, that I need both. I want that to be you and Danny." "And if we really screw this all up?" "That's life." *** Back in his quarters, Jennifer and Peter drank a bottle of wine and cuddled on the sofa with the TV playing softly in the background. Snuggling led to kisses and

wandering hands. Sprawled on the couch beneath Peter, Jennifer remembered a similar event. But that particular time they had shared a few heated kisses and little more. Peter was apparently thinking back on that morning, too, because she saw glimpses of his memories. "I want you," he whispered. "I want you worse than I did that morning." His hips were snugged between her thighs and he was pushing her down onto the cushions. Jen wanted to just give in to the lust but a niggling little piece of angst wouldn't quite let her. "What about Danny? Last time it was all three of us and I don't want to cause issues." Peter gave her a solemn look. "We talked about it before he left. He is perfectly okay with you and me having sex." Peter's shields were entirely down and she saw a snip of conversation that had occurred. Danny had even brought up the possibility that two might be less intimidating than three as a next step. Jennifer let her objections fade and focused on the moment. Peter's mouth was a glorious, gentle assault on her own. "How 'bout we take this to the bedroom. I've fallen off this couch more than once," said Peter, and she knew he meant with Danny. On the bed, Peter stripped her very slowly. Her shirt departed while he did a sinfully decadent version of his magic fingers massage on her shoulders and back. Her jeans were unzipped and his hand slipped slowly down the front, exploring, first outside her underwear, then inside. Peter eased a couple of fingers between intimate folds and she knew she was slickly wet with desire. He was slow, almost maddeningly so, rubbing, teasing, and stroking. Only when she was rocking against the careful, slippery friction, trying to find a way to ramp it up

another notch, did he finally divest her of her jeans and undies. Peter rubbed his face along the inside of her thigh. Damn, he needed a shave. She was apt to end up with a bit of "rug burn", but she didn't care. His tongue replaced his fingers, licking at that most sensitive nub, then dipping inside and returning to frustrate her some more. He finally relented and focused on the best spot. She felt the build tightening her muscles and her pulse was throbbing in far too many places. The release was like the backlash of an unwound spring, a wild uncontrolled pulsing rush. Kissing his way up her pubic hair to her belly button and then to her breasts, Peter smiled at her with an expression of pure abandon. There was a moment for a condom and then he was in her. Jennifer reveled in the combined wash of body and mind. His intensity was a like a roller coaster dive and the heat of his energy rolled through her body, pushing her toward another climax. Her fingers dug into his back and as Peter came hard within her, her own orgasm shot through her, sending a blinding set of fireworks through her nervous system. Peter eased onto the mattress beside her and gave her a slow sleepy kiss, fingers tangling in her hair. "You are positively delicious," he whispered. *** The phone rang at two am, and Peter sleepily groped for it. "Vithoulkas," he answered. One of P's people had been critically injured on an op in Atlanta. The local hospital had stabilized her but now strange problems were cropping up and the doctors were at a loss as to why. There had been some sort of miscommunication

and the woman was currently being airlifted back to the Virginia-based complex. "Okay, I'll mobilize the team here. Damn, I wish somebody had told me the moment she got to the Atlanta hospital. I would've flown there; the risk would've had been lower." Peter swung his legs over the side of the bed and ran his hands down over his face. Jennifer sat up in the bed. "Problems?" "Yeah, big problems. One of our telepaths, Isabelle Rea, was stabbed in Atlanta. She was sent there to help on an arms trafficking case. Some moron in the ATF made the decision to transport her back here, rather than trying to get me to her. It's bad." Peter dragged out a pair of scrubs from his dresser. "I need to call our trauma surgeon and get him here as soon as possible." "P has a trauma surgeon?" "Yeah, he's a pretty decent empath, no actual healing talent on the psi level, but he's really good in the OR." "Anything you want me to do? Or just stay out of the way and try to go back to sleep?" "I… If you want to come down to the infirmary in a while, if I get a break, I'd kind of like to have you around. If it's bad I like to have someone to touch," Peter said hesitantly. He wasn't sure how comfortable she was in the middle of potential medical chaos. "Sure, I'll take a shower and get dressed and meet you there." *** At the beginning of the transport Isabelle Rea had been stable. By the time she arrived at the Division P complex, her vitals were plummeting. Peter and Craig, the surgeon, scrambled to re-stabilize her with little success. Sandra, who was the head nurse, and a

corpsman named Trevor had also arrived to help. Peter had both hands on her when she coded. Fuck, oh please no, he pleaded internally as Craig grabbed for the defibrillator paddles. "Charging," snapped Craig. "Clear!" Peter lifted his hands free as the jolt twitched Isabelle's body. Nothing. They tried six more times, each time Peter pouring as much energy into her dying body as he could summon. Finally, Craig looked at Peter with sorrow in his eyes. "I think we have to call it," Craig said. Peter only nodded, unable to bring himself to say the words. He stood up to turn away and the room spun into alarming darkness as Craig began to say, "Time of death is…" *** On the far side of the room where the desks were, Jennifer watched in rapt misery as Peter and the rest of the medical people made every possible attempt to save the life of the injured woman. Peter was drenched in sweat, his scrubs clinging in dark splotches to his body. Her heart leaped into her throat when she saw Peter fall to the floor. "Fucking hell! Sandra, grab a gurney. Trevor, help me get him up," the surgeon ordered. He and the corpsman lifted Peter's limp form up onto the elevated stretcher that Sandra hastily pushed forward. "Sandra, oxygen and get his B.P. Trev get a blood glucose and a pulse-ox on him." There was a controlled flurry of activity and Jennifer clenched her fists, willing herself not to dash in her lover's direction. There was nothing she could do to help. "B.P.'s 90 over 48," said Sandra. "Blood glucose?" Craig demanded.

"Forty-six," replied Trevor. "Jesus," muttered the doctor. "Okay, I need a bag of heavy dextrose. Trevor, do what you can to stabilize him." He grabbed a tourniquet and a 16 gauge needle to start an IV from a nearby bucket. Jennifer could feel tears burning in her eyes. "Sandra, get his temp, too." "One hundred and four." "IV line's in. Trev, any sign of consciousness?" "No," the corpsman answered. "Give him two minutes, then I want another blood pressure." Jennifer wrapped her arms around her body in fear. Was Peter going to die, too? "His pressure's 92 over 50," said Sandra. "No real change, but at least it's not dropping any further." "I should have realized he was hitting the danger zone. He's absolutely drenched in sweat." Craig's hand skimmed across Peter's forehead. He picked up a spring loaded lancet and pricked one of Peter's fingers. He popped the test strip in the glucometer. "Any better?" asked Trevor. "Forty-seven," replied Craig. "I have an unfortunate suspicion it's going to take quite a while to get him back in the normal range. Oh, and somebody's going to have to notify Isabelle's family, or next of kin." "That sad task usually falls in Stephen's lap," said Sandra. "But it's four in the morning, and there's no hurry in passing on the grief. It can wait a couple of hours." She walked to the other gurney and slowly pulled the sheet over Isabelle's body. "I didn't really know her. Did Peter?" "I have no idea, but he always seems to know everybody at least a little," replied Trevor. "Speaking of which…" Trevor called across to the far side of the room. "I take it you're close to Peter?"

Jennifer was rattled. She had been carefully quiet in her anxiety, afraid she would do something to make the whole situation worse. "I'm Jennifer Sebastiano. I… I'm Peter's girlfriend," Jen admitted. She supposed it was true, well, sort of anyway. Tears were escaping down her cheeks. "He asked me to come and wait for him. He said he wanted somebody to touch when he was done." "I understand why," said Trevor. "But I don't think he expected things to get quite this bad." "Should I leave?" Jennifer asked, her voice sounded hoarse. She didn't want to leave but if it would help him in some way… "No, not at all. As soon as we can get him out of the danger zone, I think it will help to have you touch him. Yeah, he knows all of us, but if he's emotionally attached to you that's even better. I'm betting this is going to trigger at least a little bit of psi-shock in him," said Craig. *** It took half an hour for Peter's blood glucose levels to climb up past the fifties and his blood pressure to stabilize. Craig and Trevor took measurements at fifteen minute intervals. Sandra sat with Jennifer and tried to reassure her that Peter was improving even if it was slower than desired. There was still no sign of conscious response from Peter, but the two men seemed to think that Peter was stabilizing. Peter was carefully transferred to a bed and all the monitors and IVs set up. Trevor offered to move Isabelle's body to the tiny refrigerated room that occasionally functioned as a morgue. Craig squeezed the

corpsman's shoulder in sympathy and agreed that it was probably a good idea. *** "Jennifer, he's doing a little better. Now would be a good time to come over and hold him. I'm betting he's going to be pretty disoriented when he wakes up," said Craig. Jen pulled herself together and walked to the bed. Craig motioned for her to sit on the gurney. She sat gingerly, mindful of the wires and tubes. She took hold of Peter's hand. His fingers were chilly and limp in hers, his face very pale. Jennifer wasn't sure she'd ever seen him so still. Even when he was relaxed, she always thought of him as full of restless energy. "Will he wake up soon?" she asked softly. "I hope so, but realistically I'm not sure. I've never seen him lose consciousness because of using his healing talent. He told me that it happened once when he was in high school and he was in a coma for three days," the surgeon told her. "Is he in a coma now?" "No, he's not that deeply unconscious. I see a flinch response every time I draw blood from his fingers. My best guess is he burned through almost all of the readily available energy in his body in the span of less than an hour. It's taking some real effort for his body to recover." Craig touched her arm. "Try not to worry too badly. He is recovering, and I have no intention of leaving until he wakes up. Why don't you curl up against him? Your presence may help steady him." Jen nodded, tears threatening again. Another hour passed. Jennifer lay with her arm around Peter's body, her forehead gently pressed to his

cheek, worrying and praying. There was a slight sound and Peter inhaled a little deeper. "Peter?" she whispered and stroked her fingers gently on his chest. She could feel the sluggish wave of confusion and physical discomfort as he was struggling toward consciousness. Seated on a stool a few feet away, Trevor was taking his turn keeping watch. "Keep talking to him and keep touching him," Trevor suggested. "Peter, it's Jennifer. Come on, honey, wake up for me. Let me know you're okay. I'm worried about you." She pulled his hand to her face and kissed his fingers. His fingers flexed a little and his eyelids fluttered, but didn't open more than a fraction. Peter's lips moved and he made a sound that might have been a word. She could sense that he was fighting to compose a thought. Jennifer kept on rubbing her fingers against his skin, face, hands, arms. Peter lay breathing, eyes just barely open for a few more minutes before he mumbled, "Dy…ing." "You're not dying Peter. You'll be fine," Jennifer said, kissing him gently and hoping she wasn't lying. "Belle…so bad…" Peter whispered. "She didn't make it," Trevor said sadly. "And you have been scaring the fucking crap out of me, and everybody else here." "Feel… sick." "Yeah, I'm not surprised. Craig thinks you're apt to feel like you got hit by a bus for the next couple days. Your blood glucose tanked down to forty-six. You've been unconscious for more than three hours." "Couldn't… tried… couldn't save… tried so hard…" Peter's voice was a tight hoarse whisper and Jennifer could feel the grief and frustration churning his tiny amount of emotional control into near hysteria.

"Shh, it's okay. You risked yourself trying to save her. You did everything possible. I don't want to lose you, too," Jennifer murmured and hugged him a little tighter. His eyes squeezed shut and a few tears seeped from the corners. She lovingly brushed them away with her thumb. She knew if he had had enough energy he would have cried. Instead, he slowly went limp in her arms again. Trevor's hand circled Peter's wrist, checking him. "It's okay. He's in normal sleep now. Flat out exhausted but just sleeping," Trevor assured her. Jennifer brushed Peter's hair back off his forehead and placed a careful kiss there. Belatedly, she thought of Danny. It was five thirty in the morning and Danny was in Chicago, where it was an hour earlier. Would it do any good to wake him up and tell him Peter was injured, for lack of better description? Probably not, she’d be better off waiting a couple of hours. *** Carefully easing away from the spot where she was curled beside Peter in the hospital bed, Jennifer stood up to stretch. He had woken just briefly, an hour after the first time, fingers weakly clutching at her arm. She saw the little flits of memory of Peter watching Craig trying to shock Isabelle back to life, and felt the anguish. Peter sank back into sleep with Jennifer cradling him in her arms. He still looked incredibly pale. It was morning and Craig and Trevor were satisfied that Peter was stable. They had shooed Sandra off to bed and Trevor was napping sprawled across another bed. Craig was on the

far side of the room near the desks, talking to Stephen Benford. Jennifer noticed that it was now almost eight and as she began to consider calling Danny, the phone vibrated in her pocket and she dragged it out. The display said D. Valentine. "Hello," she said with a little apprehension. Delivering bad news was hard. "Hey Jen, have you seen Peter this morning? I tried his number a couple of times and even tried the phone in his room via the switchboard. No luck." "He's in the infirmary." "I tried that number too, but all I got was voice mail." "No, he's in the infirmary as a patient," Jennifer said. There was silence at the other end. "What happened?" Danny asked. "Really late last night, a helicopter brought some lady named Isabelle here. I heard that she'd been hurt really badly on an assignment. Peter was bent out of shape that they were transporting her here rather than sending him there. I don't really understand the details but she died. Craig, Trevor and Sandra, they were all working on her but… nothing. Peter was doing his thing. As best I understand from what Craig told me, he burned out. Something like used up so much energy he collapsed. He was unconscious for three hours. He's hooked up to IVs and monitors and stuff now, but for a little while even Trevor and Craig seemed pretty worried." There was such a long silence from the phone that Jennifer almost thought they'd been disconnected. "Fuck," Danny said softly. "Craig thinks Peter's stable now. He regained consciousness for a few minutes around five thirty, and then he woke just briefly an hour later. I don't know if

he's totally out of danger, but everybody seems to be pretty calm and just keeping an eye on him now." "Please… Are you with him?" Danny asked. His voice sounded tight. "Less than two feet away. I spent a couple hours holding him. Craig seemed to think it was helpful." "God. My plane doesn't leave until eight tonight. I can't get back there until the early hours of tomorrow morning." "Try not to worry too much. Like I said, he seems to be stable. I really should have called you last night, but I was so focused on him. And it was oh-dark-thirty, I didn't think it would be helpful to wake you and tell you about all this when you were so far away." "It… it would have been okay, but I see your point. Damn… What exactly does stable mean?" "From me, the art teacher, whose medical knowledge is kind of minimal, he's exhausted and sleeping. They've got him hooked up to IVs and monitors and Trevor and Craig are checking his vitals every hour. I got the impression they expect Peter to sleep most of the rest of the day." "When he woke up, was he coherent?" Danny asked. "Sort of. He was a little disoriented and then really upset about the woman's death." "If he wakes… When he wakes up… If he's feeling okay enough, can you have him call me?" asked Danny. The sheer stress in the man's voice made Jennifer wish she could reach through the phone and comfort him. "I will. I'll call back in a couple hours anyway, and let you know if anything's changed." "Thanks." "We'll be waiting for you when you get back." ***

It might have been a voice that woke him, or maybe just a sound. Peter felt his body jerk and his first thought was that he should be trying to pour more energy into Isabelle's failing nervous system. There was nothing left to give, and his breathing hitched unevenly. A warm hand cupped against his cheek. It was soft and familiar. "You're okay. Just try to relax," said a female voice. Jen. Peter opened his eyes slowly, trying to sort reality in manageable chunks for his brain. His body felt leaden and weak. He could feel the IV line in his arm and the pulse-oximeter clipped to his finger. Jennifer was curled on the edge of the hospital bed beside him, looking tired and concerned. Little flits of memory waged war in his head and he remembered feeling Isabelle dying under his hands. Peter squeezed his eyes shut. His breathing hitched again and he felt torn between wanting to pound his fists against a wall and wishing he could curl into a ball and try to forget the sensation of feeling Isabelle die. In the background, one of the monitors was stuttering with the erratic rhythm of his pulse. A hand closed on his wrist, and he felt the sharp analytical prod of Trevor's mind push against his. In combination with being pulled into the worried, almost frantic embrace of Jen's arms, Peter's body began to calm. "Peter, look at me. Let me know you're holding it together at least a little bit," said Trevor. Forcing his eyes open, Peter met Trevor's gaze. "Do you know where you are?" "Infirmary," whispered Peter. "Do you remember what happened with Isabelle?' "Yeah." "Count to a hundred for me by fives."

"Huh? Oh…" Peter slowly realized Trevor was trying to make sure there was no obvious cognitive damage, and so he counted. "Beyond feeling absolutely wiped out, anything else strike you as off or bad?" Peter sluggishly drew on his healing senses and let them skim down through his body. "Just… so weak. Doubt I could stand up," Peter answered. He was probably missing something, but couldn't place it. "Don't even think about it. Last thing you need is a face plant on the floor. Are you up for some food?" "Maybe one of the protein shakes." "Mmm, yeah that's probably a good idea." Trevor left, undoubtedly to dig through the infirmary fridge where Peter usually kept them. Peter curled against Jennifer's body a little closer, one hand tightening in the fabric of her shirt. "I wish you'd stop scaring the crap out of me. Are you having the whole psi-shock syndrome thing? Trevor said he thought it might happen," she said. Her lips brushed along his temple in a soft kiss. "Yeah… a little," he admitted reluctantly. He could feel his body feebly rebelling against his attempt to stay calm. It was grief and frustration and an alarming sense of being lost. Without Jennifer there anchoring him, he wondered if he would be swept under by the chaos. He wished Danny was there, too. Trevor returned with a plastic bottle and a bendy straw. Peter managed to drink maybe half the contents before his stomach threatened to rebel. "No more," he murmured. Jen's fingers were gently carding through his hair. "I talked to Danny on the phone. He's… well, freaked is probably the best description. If you think you can

handle it, calling him would be a good idea." She fished the phone out of her pocket. "I need to talk to him," replied Peter. "Even if it's only for a couple minutes." Jennifer dialed the phone and handed it to him. "Jennifer, is he any better? Is he conscious?" answered Danny without any prelude. "Yeah, I'm conscious," responded Peter. "What the fucking hell happened?" demanded Danny. "Jennifer told me an agent named Isabelle died. Does she mean Isabelle Rea?" "Yes." There was a good thirty second silence, then Danny muttered, "Shit." "It was an all around cluster fuck by the ATF. I don't know but half the details. By the time she got here it was already probably too late." "Okay, over and done. What about you? Are you okay?" "I overdid it, and passed out," Peter said. "Bullshit. Jennifer said you were unconscious for at least three hours. How bad, Peter? How close did you come to going with her?" "I… don't know." "Are you still in the infirmary?" Danny asked. "Yes." "Stay there. Keep Jennifer close. I'll be back as soon as I can. My flight doesn't leave until eight. I tried to see if I could switch to an earlier one, but so far I haven't had any luck." "I'll get by." Peter's voice was beginning to sound thick, he was so tired. "Let me talk to Jen." Peter passed the phone back.

"I think he's going to fall asleep again," said Jennifer. Whatever Danny said to Jennifer in response made her smile. "I will," she said and thumbed off the phone. Peter was almost asleep; the tiny exertion of talking and drinking had drained away what little energy he had. "Danny wants me to kick your ass if you don't behave and take it really easy," she whispered. Peter managed a slight chuckle. *** His watch read oh-one-thirty-five as Danny walked down the hallway toward the infirmary. The obligatory security people had been on duty at the main gate to Division P and he had seen one of the guards who patrolled the grounds at night. Otherwise the whole place was very quiet. He expected Peter to be asleep, Jennifer too, but he needed to lay eyes on Peter and reassure himself that his lover was okay. Well, maybe that should be 'was going to be okay'. He tread softly as he went into the infirmary. There was a small light on at one of the desks at the side of the room. Sandra was playing some game on the computer, one ear bud in. She nodded at Danny and pointed toward the middle of the opposite side where curtains had been partially drawn around a bed. Danny walked toward the indicated area. Two hospital beds had been zip-tied together, which was actually pretty normal around there where touch was often crucial in treatment of psi shock. Peter was wound tightly around Jennifer, spooned against her back. Danny stood motionless, just watching them sleep, then his gaze wandered to the steel door at the far end of the room. Isabelle was one of their own. She'd been brought

onboard before Danny had been given his current position. He hadn't known her well, but he had known her. He crossed to that door and pulled it open, a rush of cold hitting him from inside the tiny room. It held a single gurney covered by a sheet. He walked inside and stood by the covered form. He wasn't certain he really wanted to do this, but he felt honor bound to face her. Danny drew the sheet back. Isabelle's features were relaxed, her skin the grayish white of cold and death. He had been the one who'd sent her on that assignment. Just one more agent, one more assignment. There was no way to predict when things were likely to go horribly wrong. The whole fiasco in Meridian was ample evidence of that. Unless someone like Reed Sawyer with precognitive Talents snagged a glimpse, everybody else was pretty much doomed to live with reality as it played out. There could have been a second body. It could have been Peter. Hands shaking, Danny pulled the sheet up. Outside the walk in refrigerator, he leaned back on the closed door, chest so tight he felt like he could barely breathe. Sandra came toward him. "Are you okay?" she asked quietly. He nodded. "I can get you a cup of coffee," she said. He knew she was only trying to offer him a little solace and normality. Before he could respond, Danny sensed the presence he so deeply wanted. Peter was coming toward him, padding quietly across the tile barefoot. Danny held out a hand and pulled Peter into his arms, sliding down the length of the door until Danny's butt hit the floor. Peter's legs straddled his and they sat chest to chest with Danny's arms wrapped around his lover as tightly as he dared. Sandra quietly left them alone.

The little undercurrent thrum of energy that Danny always associated with touching Peter was barely present. The man felt fragile in his arms, not a word he would have generally associated with Peter. "Love you," whispered Danny. "Love you so much." "I love you, too. I'm glad you're back." Peter's face nestled against Danny's shoulder and blissfully he could feel the warm flow of Peter's breath against his neck. Not like Isabelle. Danny swallowed hard and hugged Peter a little tighter. They sat there for maybe ten minutes, before Peter spoke again. "No offense, hon, but I need to take a leak," Peter whispered. Danny slowly let go and Peter got up off his lap. Worry crept back again when he realized how shuffling and unsteady Peter's steps were. Danny's long legs allowed him to catch up to his lover in just a few steps. Peter gave him an irritated sideways glance. "You plan on holding my dick for me?" Peter groused. "Not unless you want me to. Mostly I was trying to make sure you didn't end up face down on the bathroom floor. You can barely walk." "I'll be fine." Danny hovered outside the bathroom for the couple of minutes it took Peter. Coming out of the bathroom, Peter's steps were even slower, and Danny slipped an arm around his lover. "Come on, you need to be in bed," Danny said, expecting more complaints. Peter was silent. In some ways Peter’s silence was more disturbing to Danny than Peter's shambling steps toward the bed. Jennifer was sitting up in the neighboring bed now, arms hugged loosely around her knees, unbound hair a

dark waterfall around her shoulders in the faint shadowy light from across the room. "I'm glad you're back," she said to Danny as Peter crawled into the bed beside her. Danny thought she looked almost as worn out as Peter. "I'll leave the two of you some privacy." She began to slide out of bed on the opposite side. In the middle of his concern for Peter, Danny was shocked. He leaned across Peter and grabbed her wrist. "Where are you going?" he demanded. She hesitated. Danny suddenly realized she assumed she was a stop gap measure in a crisis. He glanced at Peter, who appeared to be on the verge of tears. "Having you here was not just making do until Danny got home. I need you as badly as I need him," Peter whispered. Danny sensed emotional pain bordering on hysteria from his lover. "Please, please don't go," Danny begged. "He wants you here… I need you too." Jennifer slowly stretched out beside Peter again. Danny relaxed a little. He toed off his shoes and laid down facing Peter's back. It was a bit of a tight fit, three adults in the space of two hospital beds. Sliding an arm under Peter's neck, he wrapped it down over Peter's torso, then he reached across and curled his fingers around Jennifer's hand. Peter was practically wedged between them, but it must have been a good thing, because Danny felt some of the tension begin to leave his lover's body. *** Hot water sluiced through Jennifer's hair in the shower. The general consensus between the medical people of Division P seemed to be that Peter was stable

and out of danger, but that it would probably take several more days for him to regain his normal strength. A meeting was scheduled for the afternoon to discuss the events leading to Isabelle Rea's death. Jennifer wondered how hard reviewing those events was going to be for Peter, or Danny. Jesus, she wished she could sort out her feelings for them. Here she was back to the same set of problems she'd been thrashing through her brain for days now. No, make that weeks. She was still volleying back and forth between wanting to actively be part of their lives and feeling like a third wheel. Danny had begged her to come back to Peter's quarters after she was done showering and changing. Peter was supposed to be resting and Jen wondered if he was likely to be as bad a patient as Danny had been. *** Feet propped on the coffee table, Peter sat on the sofa with his laptop on his legs, staring at the screen. He was making a fairly vain attempt to start a report on what had occurred with Isabelle. Stephen Benford had been dispatched to Memphis to notify her family in person. Peter had given momentary thought to offering to perform that sad task, but when even walking across the room left him with muscles shaking so hard he could barely remain standing, jumping on a plane was not an option. Danny was hovering, making phone calls, checking email, staying within sight of his lover. Peter's concentration was crap, and he didn't seem to be able to string more than about three words together in the report. He felt numb, hollowed out, like all the energy he'd poured into Isabelle's body had left some sort

aching void. Danny came to settle on the sofa beside Peter. "Talk to me," prompted Danny. Peter just shook his head. There weren't any words that worked. Danny slid an arm around Peter's shoulders, pulling him close. Peter felt the intimate brush of Danny's mind against his own, and promptly shut his shields. Danny frowned. "Keeping me out is not going to help," Danny said. Peter set the laptop on the table. He didn't want Danny's help. He didn't want to feel better, he wanted to hurt, to bleed… to feel something! "Leave me the fuck alone," Peter snapped and stalked out of his quarters. *** Danny sat immobile for a minute. What the hell? He knew what it was like to lose people. Isabelle hadn't been the first. She probably wouldn't be the last. Danny had watched more than one person die in his life. He knew guilt and anger and anguish. He'd even crawled inside a bottle a couple of times. Was Peter likely to do something stupid? Shit, maybe he should have brought the bottle of tequila to Peter's quarters and gotten him rip roaring drunk. The healer hadn't shut Danny out of his head in any private moment since Kosovo. *** Trudging along the hallway of the residential wing, Peter had absolutely no clue where he was going. Just away. Away from what? It wasn't like he could actually escape from the reality of letting one of his people die under his hands. He'd fucked up. She shouldn't have

died, but she had. He probably should have died and he hadn't. "Peter!" Someone shouted his name. He glanced back. It was Danny, jogging toward him. "Leave me alone! I don't want to talk about it! And I don't want your help!" Peter raged. Danny laid a hand on Peter's shoulder. That was it. *** Danny saw the blow coming. Peter didn't make any attempt to disguise the desperate anger driven attack. Danny blocked the punch fairly easily, but then missed the second one. It hit his mouth and he immediately tasted blood amidst the pain. Shit. He took Peter to the ground, trying to tread the fine line between restraining the man and defending himself. Peter thrashed and struggled for a minute or more before going still. His breathing was a series of ragged uneven gasps in Danny's arms, where they lay sprawled on the floor of the hallway. "Are you through?" Danny asked. "Uh-huh," Peter mumbled. Danny untangled himself and got to his feet. He held out a hand to Peter to help him up. The look that Peter gave him was raw, but the shields were still firmly in place, and Danny couldn't decipher any good starting place for helping his friend. Peter got up on his own, but then stood in the center of the hallway, shaking. "Will you please come back inside and sit down at least?" Danny pleaded. Peter gave a tiny nod and they both went back into the apartment.

***

Jesus God, leave two guys alone in a crisis that didn't involve guns and they'd be sure to screw it up. When Jennifer arrived at Peter's quarters, hair in a long damp braid and clean clothes on, Peter was sleeping in a tight ball on the sofa and Danny was in the bathroom cleaning blood off his face. "What the hell happened?" Jennifer demanded. "I thought you two were going to hang out and let Peter rest." "I tried to get him to talk about what happened. First he clammed up, then he went stomping down the hall. We ended up in a fist fight -- well sort of, anyway. He started swinging and I… I took him down as carefully as I could," Danny explained. "Why on earth would you expect him to talk to you?" "I know what he went through was really hard. I thought it would help." Danny leaned back on the bathroom sink, hands in his pockets. Jennifer could tell he was both mad and upset. "He shut me out, shields up and all…" "Danny, it's been less than forty-eight hours since he got an up close and personal glimpse of death. He hasn't even begun to reach the talk about it stage. I'm actually surprised he's functioning at all." Jennifer dragged Danny into the kitchen and fished some ice cubes from the freezer, wrapping them in a dish towel. She put them in his hand. "He's seen people die before…" Danny muttered defensively. "How many and under what circumstances? Was he touching them? Trying to keep them alive at the time?" "I don't know."

"Even if he didn't know her all that well, this was intense for him. His hands were all over her. I'm pretty sure the way he sees it, he was the one blockade between her and oblivion. I watched it all play out. Even if in reality there's was nothing he could do, he probably thinks there was. He hasn't begun to process all the pieces yet," Jennifer said. "Last night he was upset and exhausted but he was talking at least a little…" "He was relieved you were back and the rest of it was just pretending. Danny, I've dealt with rape victims, people who were beaten nearly to death, people who've watched their loved ones murdered. The first couple of days, depending on the severity of injuries, they usually go blindly through the motions of normality or they shut down so hard that about the only thing they're still doing is breathing." "But…" Danny looked absolutely helpless. "What do I do? What do we do?" "Just be there. He's a lot like me. Hot tempered, passionate, capable of laser beam focus. Once his body catches up, I think he's going to come unglued. He may need some professional help. I assume he knows Stephen Benford pretty well?" "Yeah, and Stephen's good at what he does. The two of them have spent a lot of time analyzing the whole trauma syndrome thing for psi. It's ironic I guess, that Peter's getting slammed face first into an experience that's making him go through it," Danny said. He crooked a finger at Jennifer and she walked across the kitchen to him. He folded his arms around her and hugged her tight to his body. "I need you. Peter needs you. God… Jen, please don't ever think you don't belong." He tipped her face up toward his and kissed her.

*** The conference room held eight people. Andrew Bottman, Director of Division P, looked calmly unhappy, but Danny could tell there was simmering anger beneath the façade. Danny sat beside Peter. Craig, Trevor and Sandra were all there, as well as the helicopter pilot and the ATF agent who had been sent with Isabelle on what was supposed to be transport to more specialized care. There were rounds and rounds of commentary and discussion as to why the decision had been made to send Isabelle to Division P rather than attempting to bring P's medical specialists to her. It all seemed to stem from a batch of miscommunications along with a lack of understanding for Division P's SOP for seriously injured personnel. Isabelle had been taken to a trauma center straight from the injury in the field, which sounded like a sane and appropriate response. The hiccup was that a standard trauma center experience involved being touched and handled by possibly dozens of different and generally headblind individuals. Not all psi responded the same, but statistically the majority did very badly under such circumstances, just as Isabelle had. Belatedly, somebody had bothered to read the details of the contract for Division P agents. The instructions were clear that, in the case of profound injury and unstable vitals, medical help was required from specially qualified personnel, especially if no one emotionally close to the injured agent was available. Somehow that had gotten mangled and translated into the necessity for taking the agent to the right people. Granted, there was no guarantee that sending Peter or Trevor or any other psi to Atlanta would have resulted in

a different outcome, but the general consensus was that it would have improved her chances. The ATF agent present was not the one who had made the decision; he was merely an agent who had been at the scene of the stabbing. Danny had a suspicion the person who had made the decision was going to get chewed up and spit out by Bottman. That guy deserved it. Peter had very little to say, just some bare facts presented from his view point. Nobody pushed for more; the healer looked about like death warmed over. Danny silently fretted. After the angry outburst and subsequent skirmish in the hallway, Peter had slept for another couple of hours. Jennifer had gently roused him and convinced him to eat a little before the meeting. The normal aftermath of doing a large amount of healing resulted in Peter eating like a ravenous fifteen year old in the middle of a growth spurt. Not today. That was one more thing to tie Danny's gut in a knot. It probably wasn't going to gain him any brownie points with Peter, but Danny was leaning heavily toward grabbing Trevor after the meeting to take a look at Peter. "Stephen called me from Memphis to let me know that he and the local ATF director had broken the news to Isabelle's family. Her body will be released tomorrow to be sent home. Liberal leave is available for anyone who would like to attend the funeral," said Bottman. The meeting broke up and people began to filter out of the room. Danny beckoned Trevor to hang around for a moment. "Can you have a quick look at Peter?" Danny asked. "He looks like crap, and I can't figure out if it's got physical components or just psychological ones."

Peter was still sitting at the conference table, staring at the paperwork in front of him, chin propped on folded hands. He looked vaguely startled when Trevor grabbed another chair and sat down beside him. "Problems?" Peter asked. "You tell me," replied Trevor. He wrapped one hand around Peter's wrist and laid the other against the side of Peter's neck. Peter gave him a stony glare. "You can wall me out of your head all you want, your body doesn't lie. I bet if I tested your glucose level you'd be damn near tanked again." "Is he in danger?" asked Danny. "No, but he's pushing in that direction. What part of 'no glycogen stores left' are you not getting, dude? You're burning muscle," grumbled Trevor. "Glycogen?" Danny said. "It's more or less the reserve of energy that your liver keeps handy to even out your blood glucose level. He hasn't got any at the moment; it's one of those weird healer abnormalities. If you burn through it all, like he did the other night, it takes a while to replace it. In the meantime, the body acts like it's in starvation mode and starts burning up muscle protein to keep the brain happy and functioning. Did you even eat today?" "Yes, I did. Will you stop acting like I'm invisible or deaf?" snapped Peter. "Obviously not enough. I ought to make Danny help me drag you back to the infirmary and hook you up to an IV again. You should probably be on bed rest." "I spent most of yesterday asleep." "It's probably the only reason you're even walking and talking today," Trevor said. "Do not tell me what to do."

"Peter, you may be my boss, but right now, you're also a patient. So stop behaving like an ass," replied Trevor. "Let's go to the cafeteria. I need a cup of coffee and you need food, unless you'd rather punch me again," Danny said. Trevor gave Danny a questioning look. Danny just shook his head; he didn't want to get into the whys at this point. *** Rolling a plastic bottle cap around the table top with one finger, Peter stared at the last couple of uneaten bites of the sandwich. He had no real appetite to finish it. Danny sat beside him in silence. Peter noticed Craig coming toward them. "I need a signature, since you're the chief medical resident," said Craig. He laid a clipboard on the table beside Peter. The attached sheet of paper read "Body Release Form" and had been duly filled out with all of Isabelle's information. All it needed was Peter's signature at the bottom. Craig offered him a pen. Muscle memory took over, otherwise Peter's hand would never have been able to execute the simple task. Images began to flood Peter's head: Isabelle's face beneath the ambu-bag, the fluttering stuttering halt of her pulse, the way he'd tried to constrict blood flow to her limbs and force it back to her brain, the bright crackly energy he had flooded her synapses with that had faded to dimness then darkness. He was a healer, a healer who'd held other people on the correct side of life and death more than once. Why not her? What had he done wrong? Peter stood up from the table and began to walk in the direction of the residential wing. He didn't

want to be in the cafeteria, with the bland normality of life clunking its way along. Somewhere along the way, the walk turned into a stumbling run. He tripped and fell. When he tried to get up, his body refused. Hot scalding tears ran down his face as he curled forward, head on crossed arms, knees tucked under his body. "No… No… please, God, no…" Peter whimpered before the sobs began to choke him. He was stuck in an endless loop of loss. It hurt to breathe, his pulse pounding viciously in his chest as he screamed inside his head. It should hurt even worse; the pain was tearing him into pieces and it wasn't enough. For some reason, there was warmth around his body and he didn't know why. He couldn't begin to fathom why there should be warmth, or love. The sobs kept coming, an endless fury of grief and anger that ripped and tore and trampled until gray exhaustion claimed him. *** Maybe the sound of her heartbeat lulled him under the last crashing wave of sorrow. Jennifer lay on the bed in Danny's room, with Peter's head on her chest. She had known that when Peter finally broke, it would be bad, but she hadn't quite been prepared for Danny to come, carrying Peter's sobbing body in his arms, far quieter tears streaming down his own face. Danny had laid his lover on the bed between Jen and himself and held Peter while he sobbed and shook and rocked. Whatever little energy Peter had was burned away by the intensity of the emotional storm, and he lay so limply afterward that Danny had gone seeking Trevor.

Now, an hour later, Peter was still draped over Jennifer with an IV line in his hand, the tubing trailing up along her shoulder to join to the pole and bag of dextrose that hung there. Trevor's instructions had gone something like, "Tie him to the bed if you have to, but make sure he rests. Feed him, if he's up to it, and I'll be back in about four hours to change the IV. Call me if you think he's getting worse." Resting didn't seem to be an issue at this point; Peter had barely roused when Trevor put the IV line in. "Is this any better than having him take a swing at me or walling us both out?" Danny asked softly. He was stretched out on the bed with one arm wound around Peter's torso and Jen's hips. Jen considered the question for a moment. "Yes. It means some form of processing is going on. There's this Zen metaphor thing about having to empty the cup before you can fill it up again. He has to let some of the pain and guilt out before there's any sort of acceptance." "I wish I understood the guilt part. He placed himself at serious risk for her. It's not like they were tight or anything. I mean, Peter always seems to know everybody at least a little bit, but they weren't exactly friends," Danny said. "Try to think about it this way -- he's good at what he does, yeah?" "Yes." "And what he does is so out there off the scale impossible by most people's standards, he's viewed as the one who can fix anyone, heal anyone," Jen commented. "I guess so." "Think about the pressure. Peter's not particularly vain or selfish. He does this because he wants to be the one people believe in, and he cares deeply. It seems like

he's feeling like the ultimate failure, thinking he's dropped the ball in the unfixable way. It doesn't matter that it's possible nobody short of a deity could have saved her. He thinks it was his job, his responsibility. Add in the fact he's so far beyond exhaustion, and it's putting him in danger. It only compounds the stress." "Do you think he's going to get through this?" Danny's voice was thick with emotion. "I don't know. I hope so. I think step one is fixing the physical part of the problem." Jennifer ran her fingertips through Peter's short hair. He was still a limp sleeping weight on her chest, but he had stirred enough to clench his hand lightly in the fabric of her shirt. *** The office-wide email indicated that Division P's director Andrew Bottman was chartering a jet to take anyone who wished to accompany him to Isabelle's funeral. Danny skimmed down through the information on departure and return for the flight. He felt duty bound to go, but the thought of leaving Peter when he was so weak and vulnerable made him feel sick. There was a second email from Bottman sent to Danny only. Danny, Do not feel pressured to attend Isabelle's funeral. I am far more concerned with Peter's health and welfare. He is one of Division P's most precious resources, and I am extremely loath to do anything that would endanger him further. Andrew Precious resource? Okay, that made Peter sound like a commodity rather than a person, but Danny couldn't find too much fault in a boss who realized that

protecting the living was more important than honoring the dead. Danny was at the desk in his quarters, his chair set at an angle so he could see into the bedroom. Peter was awake after having slept another five hours. The IV line was still in his arm and surprisingly, he hadn't balked at its presence or the fact that Trevor had hung another bag of dextrose. The TV was playing softly in the bedroom, and Danny could hear abrupt changes in tone as Peter was channel surfing. Jennifer had gone to her room to get her sketch pad and a box of the type of tea she preferred. She'd probably be back shortly. Danny walked into the bedroom and sat on the bed beside Peter. "You feel any better?" It was a relatively neutral question. Peter nodded. Danny gingerly put his arm around his lover's shoulders, and was mildly surprised that Peter had no shields up. He could sense a heavy resigned feeling of guilt and an overlay of sadness. Peter twisted sideways and laid his head on Danny's chest, as his hand traced a random pattern along Danny's ribs. To Danny, this felt far closer to normal, much more like Peter's frequent need for contact. "I'm sorry I lost it and hit you," Peter whispered. His fingers grazed across Danny's mouth, and Danny felt the warm electric tingle of the healer's talent begin. "Don't," said Danny, pulling Peter's hand away from his bruised mouth. "I hurt you. The least I can do is fix it," Peter said. "No. I don't want you blowing what little energy you've gotten back on something so insignificant." "It won't take very much…" Peter protested a little. "No. Just let me hold you, and feel like you're safe."

*** Another forty-eight hours passed before Peter returned to his duties. Even then, the rest of the medical staff kept a watchful eye on him. Stephen Benford returned from his trip to Memphis and the funeral. The psychologist spent a couple of hours in his office with Peter that afternoon. It had been nearly a week since Peter's near miss. As she walked from the residential wing across the open courtyard to the office wing, the mid-afternoon heat of the day made Jennifer think about the beach. Having gone to the Virginia Beach oceanfront once with Danny, she knew the drive wasn't a particularly long one. Maybe she could convince Peter and Danny to go there. Peter would probably benefit from some hours away from the complex. She had an hour before her shielding session with Sumiko, which should be time enough to swing by Danny's office. The interior hallway was cooler and darker. She found Danny in his office. He was tapping away at the keyboard of his computer. "Do you have plans for this evening?" she asked. He looked up. "Not really, just probably dinner with Peter." "Let's go to the beach, the three of us. We could probably even do dinner there." Danny looked thoughtful and she skimmed the images of them walking on the beach in the dusk from his head, followed by something she assumed might be a hotel room. The gaze he gave her made her know he was very aware of what she was doing. "Pack a change of clothes and I'll coerce Peter," he said.

***

As far as bribery and coercion went, it didn't actually take much to convince Peter that a night away would be a good thing. Finding an available room in a decent hotel, though, took Danny a good half dozen phone calls. They found a tolerable restaurant facing the boardwalk, and went walking in the surf on the beach. In the light of the setting sun, the number of people on the beach was diminishing. They ambled a mile or so in the direction of Rudee Inlet before Danny's forays into the edge of the surf splashed a surge of water up the leg of Peter's shorts. Danny caught the flutter of aggressive amusement from Peter and a moment later Peter was chasing him through the surf, seeking revenge. Jennifer rolled her eyes and followed at a slower pace. Dashing in and out of the water's edge, Danny managed to stay mostly out of reach of Peter's splashes, not that he was trying all that hard. He hadn't anticipated the tackle from Peter however, and they landed in the sand, Peter's arms fastened around his hips. Peter rolled Danny over, crawling up his body and straddling his waist, pinning Danny's wrists to the sand. They were both still breathing fairly hard as Danny stared up into Peter's hazel eyes. He felt suppressed laughter and a hefty dose of lust from Peter. God, this was so much closer to normal for Peter that Danny felt a sense of relief. Peter's face dipped toward his and a soft kiss was placed on his mouth. "Gotcha," Peter said. Danny gave him a grin, and bucked up under Peter's spread legs grinding his groin against Peter's balls. "You can have me any way you want me," taunted Danny. "Oh? Is that a fact?"

"Well, buck naked out here on the beach might pose some problems…" Peter laughed and gave Danny a hand up as Jennifer was catching up to them. "Are the two of you done with the rough housing?" she asked. "Maybe," replied Danny. "I was thinking maybe we should head back to the hotel and stress test the mattress." He grabbed Jen and flung her over his shoulder so her torso hung down his back. She let out a squeal of indignation and beat her hands against his butt as he began walking down the beach. He barely caught the devious revenge thought before she implemented it. Suddenly, he was being given a serious wedgie as she yanked hard on the waist band of his briefs. "Jesus God damn it!" he shouted, as his nuts were being squeezed between the fabric and his body. "Put me the fuck down! Or I'll pull harder!" Jen shouted. "Okay, okay!" he yelped, noticing that Peter was doubled over in laughter. Danny let Jennifer's body slide down his back slowly as he kept hold on her legs until he could see her hands hit the sand behind his feet. "What is this? Gang up on me day?" "Oh hell, that was priceless," Peter snickered. Danny grabbed his shorts and adjusted himself to relieve the pressure. "So says the guy whose nards are still intact," groaned Danny. "Oh come on, I could have pulled a lot harder," replied Jen, sticking her tongue out. "Don't stick it out unless you intend to use it," Danny said. "What makes you think I won't?" she taunted. Oh, that got Danny's attention.

Peter was laughing again. "How 'bout I kiss it better when we get back to the hotel?" *** Inside the hotel room, Danny, Peter and Jennifer flopped onto the king-sized bed. Peter heaved a sigh as the other two bracketed his sides, arms overlapping on his torso. It felt like he was only just beginning to emerge back into reality after a handful of days in the underworld. Whether that underworld consisted of hell itself or just purgatory, he still wasn't certain, but he was sure he couldn't have done it without the two people snuggled against him. "Those are some awfully literary images," Jen said. Her fingers were making little circles on his chest. She was obviously seeing the images in his head. "You're being pretty quiet after all our joking around out on the beach," said Danny. His teeth nipped at the corner of Peter's jaw. "Sorry, I'm just… the past week was…" Peter couldn't find an adequate description, so he settled for, "bad." Jennifer placed a kiss on Peter's mouth. There was a lot of care invested in that simple gesture. "I think you offered to put your tongue to good use," Peter suggested, trying to lighten his own mood a little. "Mmm, and I seem to remember something about kissing my balls all better," Danny followed up. "In that case, we all have way too many clothes on," replied Peter. It took no more than a few minutes for all of them to strip. Peter noticed that Danny had fished lube and condoms out of a suitcase and put them within easy reach on the bedside table, along with a towel.

Danny, horny bastard that he was, slouched against the headboard, legs spread and pointed at his crotch. He was already half hard. "Somebody needs to kiss them better," Danny said, giving both Peter and Jennifer a leer. Peter glanced at Jennifer, and she smiled. They both began a slow assault. Lips, tongues, a hint of teeth…the two of them executed a delicate torture of Danny's cock. Soon he was moaning and twisting, and thrusting against either mouth as the opportunity permitted. One last lick up the side of his prick was all it took to tip Danny over the edge and he blew his load up his belly with a harsh groan. Peter reveled in the wash of pleasure from Danny's mind. It mixed with the softer emotions from Jennifer and sent an electric tingle through Peter's body. The rush of psychic sensations left him achingly hard, and he was torn between wanting to hump Danny's leg and grinding against Jennifer's hip just to get some relief. Danny groped for a towel and mopped up most of the stickiness, then he slid down from the headboard to curl himself along Peter's side, one arm draped across Peter's back and Jen's leg. Peter squirmed around until he was face up. Jennifer began kissing along his collarbone up toward his throat. God, he wanted to be in her, in Danny, on top of her or Danny or… or… "Slow down," Jen whispered. Her hand glided along his chest. Danny's long arm was pulling all three of their bodies tighter together, and the increase in skin pressure was somehow calming. Peter took a deep breath. Why had he felt so close to flying apart? "You're safe," murmured Danny, "And you can have anything you want." "I… I want both of you… together at the same time, I think," Peter managed to say.

"Mmm, that might require a certain amount of acrobatics," commented Jennifer. "It might work best if you start with Jen and then I join in, otherwise I think this is going to require more planning than any us want to bother with. Okay?" Danny had released his hold on Jennifer and he skimmed his hand down over Peter's belly to brush across his erection. A condom on and a certain amount of body rearrangement, and Peter snugged his hips between Jen's legs and began to kiss her, hands caressing her face and shoulders and moving lower. Danny lay on his side, one arm under Jennifer's neck, the opposite hand running along Peter's back and side. Peter happily found it easy to twist just a little and kiss Danny, too. Oh wow, that was such a delicious contrast. As Peter pushed into Jen's body, her legs flexed and curled around his hips. Danny scooted further down and his face was now awkwardly out of reach to Peter. Oh but hell… a cool slick fingertip pressed between his butt cheeks, circling his entrance and sliding in. It was an amazing combination of sensations, thrusting forward or pulling back. He could feel the arousal of both lovers' minds as well as all the physical sensations. Fuck, this wasn't going o last anywhere near long enough. The climax tore through him like a runaway avalanche and Peter collapsed limply on top of Jen. Danny's hand petted Peter's back. "Any brain cells left?" Danny murmured. "Huh-uh," was all of Peter's response. He slid off of Jennifer and flopped bonelessly onto the far side of her. ***

"Some of us are not as fast as you two," groused Jen. Her hand gripped the back of Danny's skull and pulled him down toward her hips. "Mouth, tongue, fingers, damn it, do something," she ordered. Danny snickered. "Demanding little wench aren't you?" He slid further down the bed and buried his face between her thighs. Oh hell, she smelled good, and tasted even better. He drew his tongue along her slick wetness. There was a hint of latex in the flavor from the condom Peter had used but that was inevitable. He slipped a couple of fingers into her and she shuddered. Danny found himself grinning with her pleasure. There were no shields between them at this point, and he was fully aware of her simmering arousal. He intended to ramp that up as high as he could take her. Long laps with his tongue and twists of his fingers soon had her writhing. The wash of pleasure from Jennifer’s climax was filling his cock again. "Hey, glove me," Danny mumbled to Peter who was satiatedly nibbling at Jennifer's fingers. Danny rolled over and pulled Jen with him so she was sprawled on top of him. It took a moment to draw her knees up so she straddled him, and she sank slowly down, taking him in. Fuck, she felt good. He gripped her hips and guided her up and back down. Her breasts bounced a little with the motion. Peter began sucking at Danny's nipple and Danny bucked hard up into Jen, body responding to the dual stimulation. Jennifer moaned and met Danny on the next stroke, their bodies crashing together. Closer, closer, Danny felt the impending explosion and he came hard enough to steal all his breath away along with most of his vision. He felt Jennifer slump down over his chest, her pulse pounding at least as hard as his own. Peter's head lay on Danny's shoulder.

With bare minimal shifting they all drifted toward sleep.

July When Danny read the request, it was pretty obvious that this was exactly what Jennifer specialized in. After all, she'd done the same sort of thing for the Baltimore police department and occasionally the FBI office located there. The Nevada Highway Patrol had a missing man. Another officer, who had responded to the same call, was now in a Las Vegas hospital. He was still alive but in serious condition. That officer was expected to survive, but among other injuries, he had been shot in the face and was incapable of talking. Danny agonized a little. Jennifer wasn't finished with her training yet. She still had two weeks to go. On the other hand, she had completed most of it. He knew her hand to hand combat skills were primo, having been on the receiving end. Her firearms proficiency, not so much. What if he was the one who went with her on her first assignment? Despite thin numbers of available and trained psi, as a whole, the administration was leaning more and more toward sending agents out in pairs anyway. Too many things were prone to go wrong. If an agent was alone when things went bad, the situation could quickly spiral out of control, as they had for Isabelle Rea. Maybe this was just another piece of the overall puzzle that Peter and Stephen Benford were bent on solving. Those two were heavy backers of encouraging all forms of emotional bonding. Danny had to smile just a little. After a lifetime of first denying his bisexual desires, then acquiescing to a long series of very temporary relationships, he was falling hard for Peter and Jennifer. Jennifer was definitely the one responsible for making him realize just how deep his

feelings for Peter ran. Jennifer was a volcano of emotion all on her own -- blunt, passionate, aggressive at times and apt to blow if the stress level got too high. Danny also grudgingly acknowledged the possibility that any assignment she was given could place her in danger. That thought positively tied knots in his gut. God. He was just going to have to suck it up and let her do her job. If she found out he was coddling her or being overprotective, she'd rip him a new one. That made him grin a little, too. She was way cute when she was mad. *** There was about an hour left until they were going to land in Las Vegas. Jennifer stared out the window. This was official. She was functioning as a Division P agent on an assignment. None of the usual rather dubious status of "just a sketch artist" applied here. There was a little hint of an adrenaline thrill when she thought about the badge and ID in her pocket. It wasn't like she hadn't done something similar dozens of times before. Her purpose was to scrounge around inside somebody's head with the hopes of producing an accurate picture of a suspect. She never knew exactly how the exercise was going to play out. Sometimes it was straightforward; sometimes it was gut-wrenching. A soft touch tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. "You look pre-occupied," said Danny. She looked at him. He wore a dark suit and a pale blue shirt. Stereotypical mirror sunglasses dangled from his breast pocket. "You look like a fed," she commented. He smiled. "Because I am, and so are you." Jennifer was dressed in a pair of black slacks, a gray blazer and a white button down over a black camisole. On short

notice it was the most conservative thing she could come up with. He slid an arm behind her and hugged her. "It'll be fine. I do this sort of thing all the time." "What happens when we land? Is there going to be someone waiting for us?" she asked. "No. We'll go collect our rental car and drive to the hospital. One of the commanders from the Nevada Highway Patrol is scheduled to meet us there at four." "Is he the one who called and asked P for help?" "No, actually that was one of our people who works for the Las Vegas DEA office. His name is Jordan Hayes. There's suspected multi-state drug trafficking involved and Jordan's acquainted with the injured officer." "And this DEA guy, Jordan, he couldn't help?" Jennifer asked. "He's a mid-level telepath, but beyond being able to figure out that Officer Sawari did actually see the person who shot him, he couldn't do much more." "Oh." *** Jennifer found the drive from the airport curious. There was the obligatory "strip" of all the big casinos that you always saw in beauty shots of Vegas, but she hadn't quite expected the miles and miles of suburbia or the stark dry mountainous crags that poked up around the edges of the city. Danny drove, following the GPS instructions to get them to the hospital. Commander Adair looked relieved to see them, and gravely shook their hands. Jennifer knew without even looking at Danny that he was scanning the law man for impressions and emotions. "How's Sawari doing?" asked Danny.

"Fair. He's stable, and that may be all we can hope for at the moment. He's being assessed by a plastic surgeon for reconstruction. One of the bullets struck him in the left side of the jaw and shattered the bone. If it had been a couple inches higher it would've been much worse." "What exactly did Agent Hayes tell you about us?" Danny asked. "Not a lot. He said you were federal from an agency called Division P. I've never even heard of you." "I'm not surprised. We're very, very specialized. I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to sign some nondisclosure paperwork. Much of what we do is relevant to national security," said Danny. Jennifer gave him a sideways glance of curiosity. That was laying it on pretty thick, wasn't it? Then again, maybe not. "I really don't care what I have to sign, so long as it's legal and gives me a chance at finding Peake." "Peake is the man who's missing?" said Danny. "Yes. Matt Sawari was following a suspected drug runner, up Highway 93. The car pulled off and parked. Sawari radioed that he was going to hang back and watch for a few minutes to see if the driver was meeting anyone. Peake was his backup. According to the log, Peake arrived on scene and met Sawari. They indicated that a second vehicle had arrived and then shots were heard over the radio. Dispatch immediately sent more officers to the location. When the rest of our people got there, they found Sawari. We suspect whoever shot him probably thought he was dead. There was no sign of Peake." "Was there any video footage?" "Nothing helpful. You're free to have a copy if you like," offered Adair. "I assume a search was conducted for Peake."

"Yes, of course. In fact, we've widened the search grid and still have a half dozen people out looking. We're not very hopeful about finding him alive at this point." "Mmm, I hope you're wrong, but I understand your acknowledgement that it's probable," said Danny. "Do you think there's any chance of getting a description or a clue from Sawari? I'm not sure what you can do that no one else can. He can't talk. There's too much damage." "It's not what I can do. It's what she can do." Danny pointed toward Jennifer. "Is he conscious?" "Intermittently." "Can I see him?" asked Jennifer. She made a gesture with her briefcase. *** Sawari was on a ventilator. He was surrounded by a maze of tubes and wires and monitors. Jennifer sat on a stool with a sketch pad in her lap. The police officer was drugged, but awake. "Matt, my name is Jennifer. I'm a sketch artist and I'm helping your police department try to find the people who did this to you and your colleague. I'm going to ask you some questions. If they seem kind of weird, don't worry about it." She had spent so much time doing other things over the past few weeks that she had to take a couple of deep breaths and try to get her head in gear. Come on, you can do this, just like always, she told herself. "All right. For the moment we're going to stick to yes or no questions. Thumb up for yes, thumb down for no. Did you see the person who shot you?" Thumb up.

"Was it a man?" Thumb up. "Was he white?" Thumb up. Now she had to edge toward getting him to visualize the man. It might or might not work. She knew the officer was loaded with pain meds. "Stare at the ceiling for me, and think about what he looked like." The heart monitor jumped a little in speed. Oh. She was going to have to get him to calm down a little. "You're perfectly safe. There's an officer just around the corner. My partner is a federal agent and he's just down the hall. No one can hurt you. I know memories are tough and they're scary, but they're just memories." She patted his hand lightly where it lay on the sheets. His heart rate settled some. "Look at the ceiling. You don't have to close your eyes unless you want to. I know it's hard, but I want you to think about the man who did this. When you very first saw him, what he looked like." The image she skimmed from his head was hazy. There was some fear and the drugs were blurring his thoughts. She made a quick sketch. The gunman was looking over his shoulder at Matt. "Okay, that's really good," she reassured him and he gave her a bleary look of confusion. "White, collar-length dark hair, relatively narrow lips… Now I want you to think about when he turned to look at you." Over the past few years she had found that breaking the events down into the less threatening moments sometimes helped. She followed the track of his internal gaze. The shooter had a bit of a snarl on those thin lips. His nose was more shadowy due to oblique lighting from the car headlights. Her mind focused on the facial

details despite the thread of fear she felt from Matt. She always felt sorry for making victims relive their traumas, but law enforcement in general often found her sketches incredibly helpful in the whole "catching the bad guys" end of things. "That's great, Matt. We're definitely getting there. Did the man ever turn more toward the headlights? Concentrate on that one second." Matt's fingers clenched a little at the blanket. Jennifer could tell he was hovering on the edge of a dark place, someplace his memory didn't really want to go. She waited, giving him a little time to calm. "Did you see what happened to Chris Peake?" she asked. That was a tipping point. She was suddenly slammed by a tidal wave of vicious images and emotions. Chris Peake had been a few steps away from Matt, and they had looked at each other as they approached the first car. The gunman had turned in their direction and pulled a gun from near his waist. Matt's gun was already out and he was shouting, "Freeze! This is the Nevada Highway Patrol." The gunman fired and the first shot hit Matt in the chest. Things became more chaotic and the memory swirled. There were more shots and Matt had seen Peake go down too as another person from the second car ran in their direction. Matt was lying on the ground at this point, having been struck by several shots. Memory deteriorated further, clouded by pain and shock. Bullet impacts were played and replayed over top of visual images of feet and some snippets of voices. She heard "Is … dead… yeah or soon… his face," followed by, "Is he still breathing?" And, "Yeah I think." The voices had to have belonged to gunmen. "Take... useful... otherwise... can dump." It was kind of like bad cell phone reception, cutting in and out. There were noises and the soft sounds

of footsteps on sand. Matt's vision was tunneling down to minimal at this point, but his panic level was spiking. He was certain he was dying... The sharp chirp of the heart monitor had apparently attracted the attention of one of the nurses. Jennifer jerked back to normal reality to see a woman checking on Matt. "Calm down, honey. You're okay," soothed the nurse patting her hand gently on Matt's arm. The woman shot an angry glare at Jennifer. Jennifer made herself take a deep breath. Her own heart rate was pounding hard enough to actually hurt. The harsh traumatic memories were still clawing at the edge of Matt's thoughts and she had a choking sensation that made her want to start screaming. In another instant, Danny was kneeling beside her, a hand on her shoulder. She wrenched away and stumbled up from the stool to the corner of the cubicle. "Do not touch me!" she snapped. She slid down the wall, pencil and pad clutched in her grip and began to draw. Core dump. Her eyes didn't really even register what she drew. It just poured out, replicating every image Matt had seen. When her hand finally slowed, she had filled eight pages. She looked up. Danny was now the one sitting on the stool. He wore an expression of deep worry as he watched her. Their eyes met. "Are you all right?" he asked. It wasn't a question she really wanted to answer, so she evaded it. "I'm almost done. Give me a few minutes to pull all this into a composite," she said. Slowly, she began to flip back through the pages and pick out the individual details for the first gunman, copying them into a very specific overall picture. She even had a very vague sketch for the second assailant, a black male of stocky build.

When she was finished, she stood up. "I… usually only give just the composite to the police, because it's too hard to explain where the rest of the information comes from. What do you want me to do this time?" she asked Danny. "You can stick with the same plan for the moment." "I have a description of the second shooter, but it's not so great. As best as I can tell, Chris Peake was still alive at the time of the shooting and there seemed to be a plan to take him along, I'm guessing to use as a hostage. Although based on a few things Matt partially overheard, I think the backup idea was to ditch the body if he died." "So there's a chance Peake might still be alive…" Danny said. "Maybe. We have no idea how badly hurt he may have been." She turned to Matt. "I have a picture to show you, if you could give me a thumb up or down on whether I got it right." The injured man gave her a stressed look. She showed him the picture. Thumb up. The absolutely haunted look in his eyes told her that she was spot on. "Thanks, Matt. You've been incredibly helpful. I know it was really hard. This will improve the chances of them catching this man and hopefully finding your friend." As she was walking out of the ICU cubicle, Danny said. "I, however, do want to see the other stuff you drew." Jennifer handed him the sketch pad. *** Adair was awfully startled when Danny gave him the composite. "The guy can't talk at all. How did you…?"

"Ms. Sebastiano has some unusual methods and I'm afraid that's all you have clearance for me to tell you. If you have doubts, please feel free to talk to Agent Hayes from the FBI. He's aware that the Baltimore field office has used Ms. Sebastiano with great success on several cases," said Danny. He glanced at Jennifer, who was putting her sketch pad and pencils back into her bag. He was worried about her. She had been adamant about not letting him touch her. Her shields were slammed down hard and tight, but her body language screamed tension. He thought she would benefit from a hug, but obviously she didn't think so. "We're not leaving Vegas until tomorrow. I'll check back with you in the morning and see if you've made any progress." Danny crooked a finger at Jennifer and she followed him out of the hospital. It was after seven and with the flight, it had been a long day. In the car driving back to the hotel, Jennifer was unusually quiet. Danny was frustrated and still deeply concerned. "Talk to me, Jen. Make me believe you're okay," he prompted. "I'm fine." "Bullshit." "Danny…" she began. He could tell she was trying to rein in her temper. "It's often this way. If the victim was traumatized, especially if it was bad, I get to see it all. In excruciatingly up close and personal detail of what they went through. Every emotion, every terror, just everything. It takes me a while to… get it out of my head, sometimes a couple of days." "Is going to the hotel okay? Or do you want to go somewhere as far from people as we can get?" he asked. "The hotel's fine. Where are we staying?"

"The Luxor. The accounting department can chew my ass later." *** Danny wished Peter was with them. He was still worried about Jennifer. They'd checked into the hotel, just one room. There didn't seem to be much point in separate rooms, and now he was leery of letting Jen out of his sight. She was acting strangely. She had shoved her sketching stuff into a drawer and taken a big plastic box of washable markers out of her suitcase, leaving them on the desk top. She'd drifted around the room, touching things. Not him, just things, specifically the window and the mirrored front to the closet and bathroom mirror. This was getting slightly creepy. She kept a distance of several feet between them. "Are you tired?" he asked. "Yes." "Come to bed. I'll hold you," he offered. "No." She yanked back the blankets of the second bed and lay down, facing away from him. Now he was definitely worried. Even when she had been uncertain about sharing sex with him and Peter, she'd never been so brutally distant. Her shields were still in full force as well. He could try to force the issue, but he wondered if that would make the situation worse. Eventually, he stretched out on the bed he was sitting on and tried to sleep. An hour later, movement from Jennifer woke him. She was pulling the markers from the box. "Jen?" he called softly. There was no response. For a moment he thought she was pointedly ignoring him, but there was something odd and jerky about her motions. She pushed back the curtains and began to run her

fingers over the glass, in little stroking motions. After a minute or so she began to draw. Danny debated trying to talk to her, but there was an absolutely vacant expression on her face. He finally decided she was either sleep walking or in some sort of fugue state. She wasn't doing anything that would put her in physical danger, so he watched. The scene she drew was absolutely surreal. There were feet and hands and guns and miles and miles of what could only be blood based on the bright red markers she used. Distorted faces grimaced and leered. To Danny, the whole thing was reminiscent of Edvard Munch meets Clive Barker: graphic, gory, distorted and just plain disturbing. Eventually she finished, letting the markers fall to the floor. She sank to her knees, head bowed and began to make little snuffling sobs. Danny had had enough. He got out of bed and went to her. He scooped her up in his arms and carried her to bed. She made no move to push him away or fight him. He tucked her beneath the blankets and crawled in beside her. He held her for a long time while she snuggled into his embrace and continued the broken little not-quite-sobs. After another hour or so her body relaxed and she slept. Danny wasn't sure she had ever actually woken up and he didn't know if that was good or bad. *** Get up, pee, clean up the mess. Jennifer slipped out of bed and, regretfully, away from the comforting warmth of Danny's body. She had no memory of getting in bed with him, but then, she seldom remembered the "afters." Returning from the bathroom, she paused for a moment to actually look at what she had drawn on the

window. It was neither better nor worse than some other ones. "Why the window?" Danny asked. She turned to see him sitting up in bed. He must have woken while she was in the bathroom. "Because I got tired of having to repaint my walls." "Huh?" Danny looked confused. "Remember that I've been doing this for several years. When I first started, I'd wake up in the morning and I had downloaded all the crap in my brain onto the walls of my house, any flat vertical surface. As you can see, it's not real pleasant stuff," she explained. "Is this what you saw in Sawari's head? It doesn't match the stuff you drew at the hospital." "I was conscious, he was conscious. These are his nightmares. Deep, subconscious imagery of his trauma." "Okay, back to why the window?" he asked. "After having to repaint the interior of my house three times, I hit up a friend who does hypnotherapy. I got her to plant post-hypnotic suggestions to find glass to draw on. Windows, mirrors, tile in a pinch, something I can clean up without too big a hassle. At home I have an eight foot square sheet of glass mounted on my bedroom wall, and there's always a bucket of markers handy." "Does it always happen when you sketch for someone?" "No guarantees, but generally," said Jennifer. "Is there anything that can stop it? Did you talk to Stephen Benford?" "I tried tranquilizers a couple times. That was God awful. I couldn't get it out of my head and I started hallucinating. So basically I just let it happen. And yes, before you start questioning my sanity, I did talk to

Benford about it. He seemed to think I was better off just processing it and getting rid of it." Danny held out his arms to her. "Does touching you before you get it all out of your head make it worse?" Jennifer was about to say yes, but then it occurred to her that anybody who she'd interacted with before was probably headblind. Did it make a difference if they weren't? "I'm not sure. I guess I'm guilty of the psi stereotype; I have a tendency to avoid touching most people anyway. The few people I've shaken hands with after sketching jobs… it hurt. I can only guess I was so overloaded that any extra input was just dumping gasoline on the fire. But…" "But what?" he pressed. "I've never… It's never been another psi. It's never been a lover. Okay, I've had some boyfriends, and it's not like I was ever a long term celibate, but I've always tended to avoid mixing that part of my life with them," she finished. She padded slowly back toward the bed. "I'm sorry if I hurt you." "I'm not hurt. I'm just worried. Everybody operates differently. If you can't handle physical contact in the immediate hours after plowing through somebody's trauma, then that's life. I just know me. When someone I care about is stressed or upset, it pegs my empathic talents and I just want to hold them or offer some kind of comfort." She sat on the bed beside him and leaned into his embrace. "Truly, I don't know if I'd let you hold me there at the hospital if it would have helped or just made it all worse." She cupped her hands against the sides of his face. "Right now, though, I could do with some touch time." She kissed him softly.

Jennifer was still mostly clothed, having never bothered to undress the night before. Danny slowly stripped her naked and tossed his briefs on the floor with the rest of the clothes. Beneath the blankets, he folded her in his arms and held her against his body. Jen wasn't all that short, but cuddling up to Danny always made her feel petite and protected. His hands roamed down her back as he planted a litany of gentle kisses on her mouth and throat and shoulders. His fingers stopped at the base of her spine and made a slow teasing circle. That motion sent flutters of arousal through her lower body and she arched into the touch. Her breasts pressed against the firm sculpted planes of Danny's chest. Lord, he was built like an old Renaissance Master's wet dream. Jen's fingertips traced Danny's collar bones to the shallow dip at the base of his throat. She kissed the little hollow softly, and then brushed her lips lower to follow the center line of his chest down to his belly. Soft curls trailed from his belly button downward and his cock jutted stiffly up to lay against them. With the tip of her tongue, she licked along the flat angle of his hip bone. His breath hitched and his hands tangled in her long loose hair. His desire for her was flaming from want to need, and she could feel his emotions crawling through her veins as little flits of memories of previous love making wafted past. Danny hooked his hands under her arms and pulled her back up the length of his body. "Want you so bad," he murmured, and kissed her mouth. It took a minute to dig a condom from the open suitcase beside the bed. As Jen's hand rolled the condom down, her mind provided the quirky thought that that body part was proportional to the rest Danny's six foot four muscular frame. "I'm glad you like the package," Danny teased.

"I like Peter's, too," she taunted in return. "Mmm, so do I." Jen moaned as he filled her, and her fingers dug into his flanks when he thrust into her. The stretch of her body around him triggered all sorts of brain-melting pleasure. His teeth nibbled at her ear and his breath was a heavy pant. "Love you," he gasped. She could feel the toe-curling deluge of ecstasy hovering. His mouth burned a path of soft fire down the side of her neck and she came in hard pulsing washes. Danny made a faint whining groan and she felt the bright flood of his climax as he pounded into her with total loss of control. He laid sprawled half on her and half on the bed, sucking in sharp gasps for several seconds as she lay too blissed out to move. After a while, he said, "At some point we're actually going to have to get out of bed." "Later…when my legs work." *** Danny was impressed by the fact that Jennifer had packed a roll of paper towels in her suitcase. That and a tiny bottle of shampoo made for fairly easy cleaning of the pictures she had drawn on the window; it took only fifteen minutes or so. He was getting ready to take a shower when his cell phone rang. "Valentine." "Agent Valentine, this is Randall Adair. I wanted to give you an update. We located Chris Peake. They found him in the trunk of a suspect's car, shot three times. He was taken straight to surgery and they say he's in critical condition." "Will he make it?" asked Danny.

"I don't know. From what little the hospital has told us, it's iffy." "Is there anything I can do for you?" "You've already helped far more than the department ever hoped. We really expected to find just a body, if we found Peake at all," admitted Adair. "Thank you." "You're welcome. Could I ask you to drop me an email in a few days and let me know how it goes?" Danny asked. "Of course." *** The flight out of Las Vegas left in the early afternoon and was scheduled to connect through Atlanta back to Norfolk. Jennifer walked down the concourse toward the gate in McCarran airport. Danny strode along beside her. "I hope Chris Peake makes it," she said. "Did Adair give any indication what kind of injuries he had?" "Only that Peake had been shot three times. I'm sure the two days he spent without any medical care didn't help." Jennifer detected a snippet image of Danny staring down at his own arm as it bled from a bullet wound. "I guess it makes it all that much harder, having been on the receiving end of a gunshot wound." "Mmm, yeah." She slipped her hand into Danny's larger one. *** About two-thirds of the way into the first leg of the flight, the plane hit turbulence. It was bad enough that drinks got spilled and a couple of overhead storage

doors popped open. Danny had flown on military transport flights a few times, so the actual rocking and shaking didn't bother him much. A large chunk of the passengers, though, ranged from uncomfortable to nearly terrified, and Danny was having a hard time shutting out their emotions. Maybe it was the fact that close to two hundred people were all packed into a situation that they had no control over, or maybe it was a combination of jet lag fatigue and his worry about Jennifer the night before. Danny rubbed his temples and tried to draw his shielding up tighter. The rattling and bouncing wasn't helping with his concentration or lack thereof. A couple of stomach lurching drops and the sheer fear from some of the people around him felt more like an assault on the inside of his head. "Danny? Danny? Are you okay?" It took a concerted effort to turn his head and focus his eyes on Jennifer. She was looking at him with a mixture of puzzlement and concern. "J-jus' too many scared p-people," he said. His tongue felt thick and when he reached out to lay a hand on her leg, his arm banged into the dividing arm rest. God, what the fuck was wrong with his coordination? Jennifer took hold of his hand and squeezed it gently. The plane did another nauseating dip and Danny clutched her hand, eyes squeezed shut. *** The rocking and jolting didn't qualify as fun, but it paled in comparison to Jennifer's worry about Danny. He was curled forward, one arm wrapped around himself, one hand still clutching hers, just staring at the floor.

"Danny? Hon, are you sick?" she asked. She deluded herself for a few seconds into thinking he was motion sick. Squeezing his hand, she opened her psychic shielding a little. He had said something about the scared people, and she was definitely aware of the emotions of the other passengers now. Jennifer knew she was making a face as she sensed the death and destruction images running rampant through other minds. She narrowed her focus to just Danny, trying to gently prod his mind with her own. It felt all wrong to her. Danny's shields were barely there and underneath it all was chaos. Not that people's thoughts usually had a pristine organization to them, but this seemed like a real mess. She wasn't even sure if some of it was really Danny's or a reflection of the passengers around them. Either way, Danny wasn't coping. Jennifer rubbed her hand against his leg, his shoulder, and his face trying to break through whatever he was stuck in. She cupped her hands around his face and turned it toward her own. "Danny, you're safe. Come on, Danny, look at me," she begged. Finally there was some focus to his eyes. "F-falling…" he muttered. "You're not falling. You're safe. I'm right here beside you." Jennifer was glad the turbulence had calmed down somewhat. "Are you back now?" she asked, hoping for a coherent response. "Guess so…What happened?" His eyes rolled a little, like he was trying to glance around, but the feel of his mind against hers still felt significantly off. Jennifer took his hands in hers. "I'm really not sure. You sort of tripped offline and I couldn't get a response from you. You don't look so great."

"How long?" Danny asked. "Were you gone? Maybe three or four minutes. You didn't pass out. Your eyes were open and you stayed sitting up straight, more or less." "I feel… weird." He took a deep breath and tipped his head back, then rolled his head as if trying to work the kinks out of his neck. "If you asked me to get up and walk off the plane right now, I'm not sure I could do it without a lot of stumbling." "We have about an hour until we're due to land. As soon as we get to Atlanta, I'm calling Peter," Jennifer said. *** When the passengers began filing off the plane at the Atlanta airport, Danny followed the herd. He felt shaky and unsteady and kept a hand on the seat backs as he walked up the aisle. He supposed that the people who looked at him probably thought he was either half-asleep or not quite sober. Jennifer was a couple of steps behind him. Once the two of them were in the concourse, she drew him to an empty gate area. "This is probably about as far away as we're going to get from the crowds," she said. "Sit on the floor." He did so, stretching his long legs out in front of him. Jennifer knelt beside him, facing him and pulled his body to her, his head to her shoulder. She held him and combed her fingers through his short hair. "Any better?" "Sort of." "You still feel blurry to me," she said. "Blurry? Is that a technical term?" "Hey, it's the closest word I can think of. I'm going to call Peter."

*** "Hey, are you still in Vegas?" asked Peter when he answered the phone. "Nope, we're almost home. We're in the Atlanta airport at the moment, and we have a problem," replied Jennifer. She spent a couple minutes giving him the rundown of what happened on the plane. "Damn, shit, and fuck," Peter muttered. "That's the third time he's had something like that happen." "Third? Is this a permanent problem?" Jennifer glanced down at Danny. When she called Peter, Danny had stretched out full length on the floor, with his head in her lap. "I have no idea. I don't know what's causing it, and that bothers me. He and I went to a concert in Virginia Beach. It was pretty crowded, like maybe twenty thousand people. For lack of a better description, he got his circuits blown. It was pretty bad -- migraine, vomiting, coordination issues. How much longer is your layover?" "We have another hour and a half, or thereabout." "I assume he's right there with you?" "Yeah, he's lying with his head in my lap." "Let me talk to him." Jennifer handed the phone to Danny. "Talk to Peter." Danny's end of the conversation seemed to be confined to "Yeah… so-so… yeah, some… okay." He handed the phone back to Jennifer. "So what do you think?" asked Jennifer. "He sounds tired and grumpy. If he'll go for it, I think you should get him to eat something. Stay with him as much as possible. I know that's not always feasible, bathroom trips and such, but do what you can. There's

not a lot I can do from here. What time is your plane due into Norfolk?" "Right around midnight." "I'll be there. And Jen…" Peter said. "Yeah?" she asked. "I'm glad you're with him." *** Peter waited impatiently in the Norfolk airport, watching the arrivals board. He'd spent the last couple of hours racking his brain for reasons why Danny was having these problems. If the hour hadn't been so late, Peter would have probably picked Stephen Benford's brain for ideas, too. He caught sight of Danny's tall form coming down the hall; Jennifer was only visible through breaks in the crowd. As Danny got closer, Peter noticed that he had a hollow-eyed, exhausted look. Jennifer had Danny by the hand. "Seems like every time I pick you up at the airport lately, you look like absolute hell," said Peter. He pulled Danny down in a kiss and let his healing Talent rifle through his lover's body at the same time. He detected muscle tension and erratic nervous system conduction along with fatigue and a building headache. Danny's shields felt battered and uncertain, too. "Love you, too," replied Danny, a snarky tone in his voice. Peter gave Jennifer a kiss, too. "How was he on the hop flight from Atlanta?" "Okay, I guess. He slept a little," she replied. "That's probably good. Let's head for home. I want to do a neurological exam." "I'd rather just go to bed," complained Danny.

"I know," said Peter sympathetically. "But this whole thing is really worrying me." *** It took twenty minutes to collect luggage and another forty-five minutes to get back to Division P. Even Jennifer was seriously dragging by the time they got there. Danny was less than thrilled at having to sit on the exam table in the infirmary while Peter had him perform a whole series of test maneuvers like squeezing his hands and touching his nose. "Take off your shoes and walk heel-toe to the wall," ordered Peter. "What is this, a sobriety test?" grumbled Danny. His head was killing him and he couldn't figure out why Peter hadn't offered to shut down the pain yet. He kicked off his shoes and started the appointed task. He was tired, and halfway to the wall he stumbled. In an instant, Peter and Jennifer were on either side, steadying him. "Okay, there's no left/right disparities, no one-sided weakness, but you're still having coordination issues," said Peter. "I'm fucking exhausted. I'm jetlagged, didn't get enough sleep last night, and had a really shitty day," Danny snapped. "And my head is just pounding. Damn it, Peter, will you please either get rid of the pain or give me some Excedrin!" "Sorry, sorry, I'm just worried because I can't find an identifiable cause for the problem." Peter cupped his hands around Danny's neck and forehead and the pain blissfully drained away. "He does have a point," said Jen. "I'm pretty close to wiped out, too. Can we all manage to fit into somebody's bed?"

"God, I knew when I crammed that queen sized bed in my quarters, it'd pay off some day," Danny said blearily, giving them a small grin. "And here you told me it was because a regular bed's not really long enough for you," Peter teased. "That, too." *** Peter left messages that he would be unavailable until at least noon. It was already close to two a.m. Danny was snuggled between Peter and Jennifer in the queen sized bed in his quarters. Danny had fallen asleep almost as soon as he was horizontal. Peter lay with his hand on Danny's chest, feeling his lover's heartbeat. He let his energy flow into Danny's body in a slow trickle. This wasn't conventional damage; he didn't think it was something he could fix by force. He placed a kiss on one of the shiny pink scars left on Danny's arm from the bullet wound. As freaked as that had made Peter feel at the time, that was a definable and quantifiable type of damage. This problem was so much harder. Peter eventually gave up torturing his brain for answers it didn't have, and slept. *** Danny felt surprisingly better when he woke. The fact that his morning wood was pressed against Peter's ass was just an added bonus. He could feel the soft whisper of Jennifer's breathing on the back of his neck. He lay there for a number of minutes, trying to decide if he wanted to crawl his way out of the warm body burrito he was snuggled in or if he wanted to wrap an

arm around one of his lovers and hope for a little morning action. He wiggled a little closer to Peter, wrapping an arm around his lover's body and rocking against the firm curve of Peter's butt. This drew a low sleepy sound from Peter. Danny skimmed his hand down the front of Peter's body and found a half hard cock beginning to tent the front of Peter's briefs. Mmm, things were perking up. There was a bit more squirming and two pairs of underwear got kicked to the bottom of the bed. Danny slid one arm under Peter's neck and used the other to map the thinly muscled limbs of his partner. He felt the sharp analytical scan of Peter's mind through his. "You feel better," whispered Peter. It was a statement, not a question. "Uh-huh," Danny muttered. He was more interested in the way Peter's body felt against his own than trying to unravel the reasons behind yesterday's semi-disaster right then. His fingers stroked Peter's now deliciously hard prick for a little while as he nibbled and kissed Peter's neck and shoulder. Eventually he changed tactics and ran his fingers down the crack of Peter's behind to work at the tight, crinkled opening there. It was already half slicked by Danny's own pre-come. "You interested?" he asked softly. "Oh, yeah." There was always lube and condoms handy on the night stand these days. *** The heavy scent of male arousal and the soft rocking motion of the mattress woke Jennifer. For a few moments she thought it was the remnants of a dream that fluttered at her consciousness, then she gradually

realized Peter and Danny were having sex less than two feet from her. It was slow and easy and accompanied by wandering hands and warm emotions. For a sleep clouded minute she felt vaguely annoyed that they were so wrapped up in each other that she had become irrelevant, then something approaching logic finally kicked in. She had been asleep, and they were being really rather quiet about their actions. Even though the lower halves of the men's bodies were covered by blankets, seeing Danny spooned so tight to Peter along with the grope and caress of their hands stirred Jen's own desire. God, they were beautiful. Muscled limbs and torsos, Danny's tousled blond hair, and Peter's sandy brown: it was pornographic art. Jennifer could feel her own arousal growing low in her belly. Her hands couldn't resist touching Danny's back. "I wondered if you were going to join in at some point," Danny said. Jennifer let out a tiny squeak of surprise as two different male hands grabbed at her and hauled her up over top of joined bodies to land in front of Peter. Peter placed a long lush kiss on her mouth and Danny's hand cupped her breast. "You need to ditch the clothes," Peter said. Jennifer hesitated only a moment, trying to figure out the easiest way to get out of her T-shirt and undies. It proved easiest to slide out of bed for a moment. As she started to slip back in, Peter wound an arm around her hips and pushed her down so that his face was nearly in line with her thighs. Oh, that had possibilities. Agile fingers, lips and a sinfully creative tongue soon had her bucking against the delicate torture. She felt Peter's explosive exhale as he came all over her breasts. It only took a few minutes for him to restart his assault on her. The build of tension in her body cut loose with a hard

clenching set of waves that triggered Danny's climax. Jennifer rode the combined wave of ecstasy until she flopped limply against Peter. Danny's hand rubbed across her body, petting her, and she could feel his mind doing something similar to hers. An image of her hands gripping his on the plane passed between them and she was aware how amazingly grateful he was she had been there to help him. Peter must have picked up on the thought. His hand pressed down on top of Danny's, sandwiching it against Jennifer's hip. "This is a problem that has to get solved," said Peter softly. "It's too dangerous to just ignore." Danny propped his chin on Peter's shoulder. "Yeah, I know," he admitted. He ran a fingertip along Jen's lips. "I'm not really sure how well I would have coped if you hadn't been there." *** Hoping a fresh perspective would help with Danny's problem. Jennifer, Danny and Peter met with Stephen Benford in a conference room over lunch. They had all collected food from the cafeteria and brought it with them. Jennifer wasn't entirely sure what function she served in this meeting, except for the fact that she had been with Danny during the latest "episode." Stephen Benford sat across the table from Peter. The head psychologist was a medium height man in his late forties, with dark hair. She thought he strove to look professionally invisible. There was nothing in his clothing, look or demeanor to make him stand out in a crowd. This ignored the fact that if he was actually focused on you, it made you feel like you were under a

microscope and being dissected all in one go. Jennifer had been on the receiving end of that focus during the first week of her training at Division P. "What can we say about common threads for all three events?" asked Stephen. "Large crowds, or closely clustered people in the case of the plane, and shared or similar emotions from all those involved," replied Peter. "Incident one revolved around stress and anger because of canceled flights at that airport. Incident two was at the concert and people were high, drunk, and generally feeling enthusiastic. Incident three involved fear, because of the turbulence. Yes?" summarized Stephen. "Yeah," acknowledged Danny. "Things that seem to influence this problem are significant numbers of people, proximity, and intensity of the actual emotion. All three times you experienced blank spots in your memory?" "At least a couple of minutes, but I didn't apparently black out or in point of fact lose consciousness. Peter told me I was climbing a fence at the concert, Jennifer said I was just staring and unresponsive on the plane. Obviously I still had muscle control of some kind." Stephen turned to Jennifer. "I'm assuming you touched him as well as spoke to him when you tried to break through to him." "Yes," she said. "If the seats on the plane had been more forgiving I'd've tried to put my arms around him." "I debated the merits of hooking him up to the EEG last night, to see if I could get a hard copy on any lingering brainwave deviations," said Peter. "I don't know if you would have seen anything or not," replied Stephen. "Here's my guess. There's either a shielding problem or an empathic processing problem,

which may loosely translate to: you've gotten more sensitive over time." "I'm not sure how I feel about that idea if this is the result," Danny said. Jennifer read frustration in his body language. "We all know practice and training is incredibly helpful. You spent a lot of years making very minimal and untrained use of your empathy," said Peter. "These days you use it nearly every day." "We don't really know, however, if that's the root of the problem. It still could be a shielding issue, or something we haven't thought of yet," Stephen commented. Peter leaned back in his chair. "The bottom line seems to be that you are acutely aware of crowds and especially crowds where there are likely to be shared emotions." "Great. You all know how much flying and traveling I do. Exactly how paranoid am I supposed to be about it happening again?" Danny asked. "Here's another idea we need to consider. I think we might want to attempt to provoke an episode, under somewhat controlled circumstances," suggested Stephen. Peter gave Benford a dubious look. "We're not entirely sure how dangerous this is." "Don't flip out. He has a point. It would be helpful to know more precisely what triggers this crap," replied Danny. "Then how exactly do we provoke this problem?" asked Peter. "The concert scenario seems like the easiest to duplicate, and potentially the least risky in that the emotions are usually good ones," Stephen offered.

"Yeah, but it's also the one that left me with the worst backlash," retaliated Danny. "If we're guessing that sheer numbers of people is a component, there were nearly twenty thousand people there," Peter noted. "So perhaps we pick a concert with a lower attendance level and make sure that there's more than one of us around to keep an eye on you," said Stephen. With something approximating a game plan in place, Peter and Stephen headed out of the room. Jennifer remained behind, noting that Danny hadn't moved yet. His fingers were fiddling with the spoon on his cafeteria tray. "You don't like the plan," she said. He gave her lopsided smile. "I'm not sure my liking or disliking it has a whole lot to do with it." Danny held out a hand to her. Jennifer got out of her seat and went to him. He pulled her down into his lap. "Does Stephen outrank you?" she asked. "Yeah… no. It's complicated. Technically he's part of the medical team, so he could declare me unfit for duty on a temporary basis. Not that I think he's very likely to do something like that. As much as I like and respect the guy, his solutions to problems are… well, sometimes not very easy to live with. I guess we';re making progress though." Danny's head rested against Jen's chest, and she combed her fingers through his hair.

August "I have exactly three days before my fall semester kicks off," said Jennifer. "And today is my last official day here." Her ten weeks had stretched out a little due to the assignment in Las Vegas. She leaned against the door frame of the infirmary. Peter was parked in front of his desk. He had spun the chair around to face her. "You're going back to Baltimore," he said. His tone was flat. "Yes, I have a job. One semester is all I can afford to blow off." "Are you aware that P will be paying you $5000 for your few days in Vegas?" "That much?" she asked. "Yes. You have identifiable skills that are shared by only three others, and even theirs aren't exactly the same." Peter got up and crossed the room to where she stood. He ran a finger down her nose and over her lips. "And then there's us. Us in the you, me and Danny sense." "I know," she whispered. He could feel the tight knot of guilt and longing and uncertainty that wound through her body. "It's been good, we have chemistry, and we live two hundred and fifty miles apart," said Peter. "Which is drivable. It takes about five hours. I've known some people to do the bi-coastal thing for a while just to keep relationships together." "How realistic is that?" "In this age of texting, cell phones, internet and webcams, why not? Jen, I don't want to give up because it might be difficult," Peter pleaded. Danny came down the hall toward them. He gave Peter a slightly confused frown.

"We were talking about distance issues," said Peter. "Yeah, we need a game plan or a schedule of who drives where and when," Danny replied. He walked up behind Jennifer and put his arms around her, resting his chin on her head. "Why do I have the distinct impression you think this is somehow the end?" "We're going to be apart. Relatively far apart," she said sadly. "Yeah, and? I have enough freaking frequent flier miles from this job to send you to Bangkok and back for free," Danny said. "I told her it's less than five hours away. I know a guy in Norfolk who drives home from DC almost every single weekend to be with his family," Peter offered. "It's not impossible." "You could move down here," suggested Danny. "I have a job, a job I actually like reasonably well. I know nothing about the colleges down here." "What about your artwork? One time you said you wished you had more time to explore it," Danny continued. "I only make a few thousand dollars a year at that. I can't live on that." "I am not going to let you slide out of my life." Peter bit back the angry hurt he felt. It seemed like she was generating excuses for their relationship not to work, but the tension in her body belied the idea. "You have Danny," she blurted out. Damn it, now he was annoyed. "I want you! I want you and Danny. What do I have to do to convince you that you aren't a convenience or just some toy for him and I to share? I love you and I want you in my life. Sending you a state away is tearing a fucking hole in my heart and having Danny close will only ever fix half the

damage!" Peter knew he was losing his temper, and he didn't care. He watched a tear slide down her cheek. Danny's arms were still around Jennifer. Peter saw Danny turn his head a little and lay his cheek against Jennifer's head. "I love you, Jen, and I love Peter. Please, if we lose you…" Danny's voice trailed away and he reached toward Peter, pulling them all together. Peter's arms enveloped his two lovers. Jen's face buried against Peter's shoulder, her hand curled around Danny's wrist. "Love you, both," she whispered. *** "How long's she been gone?" Peter asked, flopping down on the sofa beside Danny. "Um, about two hours," answered Danny. "Fuck, seems like longer." Danny's arm curled around Peter's shoulders and Peter slouched into the embrace. "If we call her while she's driving, it'll just distract her. She needs to focus on the road." "I know. I still feel like I should have stowed away in her trunk," Peter replied. Danny chuckled. "You and I both have work-related crap to do tomorrow. She is a competent adult, you know, and she was taking care of herself pretty well before either of us entered the picture." "Do you miss her?" "Hell, yeah. I keep having this thought that she's just somewhere else in the complex and all I'd have to do is spend five minutes looking for her." Danny kissed Peter on the temple. ***

Suffolk to Baltimore was a tediously long and boring drive. Jennifer had let a friend sublet her house while she was away. Now as she walked through the house, she noticed small things had been moved. It was no big deal. The trade-off for making sure her house was looked after for ten weeks of the summer was worth the minor hassle. Upstairs in the bedroom, her renter had even obligingly taken all the sheets off the bed and left a stack of clean ones sitting there. It was almost midnight and tomorrow Jennifer had a faculty meeting and a batch of prep to do. Sleep would be a good plan. As she began to make the bed, memories of sleeping with one and often two additional people crowded her thoughts. The thought of sleeping alone tonight so far away from Danny and Peter made her chest ache. When she finished making the bed, she sat down on the end and gazed at the sheet of glass held onto the wall by a wide wooden frame. There was always a bucket of markers on the floor beside it. She picked up a black one and began to draw. This was not the usual sort of thing she used the glass for. Stark clean lines outlined the shape of faces and shoulders and bodies: Danny and Peter. In the center between them, she left a blank space, a void. Finished, she tossed the marker back into the bucket, and tried to distract herself by unpacking. The ring of her cell phone broke the quiet, and she smiled at the caller ID listed. "Hi, Danny." "Are you home yet?" he asked. "Yeah. I got back about thirty minutes ago. I'm just trying to unpack and get myself on track for work tomorrow."

"We'll see you in eight days, as long as there aren't any major disasters around here. We'll be up there for Labor Day weekend." "Traffic's going to be a total bitch, you know," she commented. "Doesn't matter. If it can't be both of us, one of us will come. Stick with the plan, babe. Every other weekend. I'm trying to figure out the commuter flight thing, too. BWI to Norfolk seems like a no go unless you want to have to fly to Philly or North Carolina first. The closest we may be able to get is Dulles or Reagan to Norfolk. Like I said, I have an absolute ton of frequent flier miles. We may as well burn some of them and save you some driving." "If driving gets me to you and Peter…" she said. "Damn, I miss you already." She stared at the ceiling, hoping for some sort of inspiration against the hollowness she was feeling. "Is Peter there?" "Yeah, I'm here," Peter responded. "You're on the speaker. We miss you, too." *** On Labor Day weekend, Jennifer bought a king sized mattress and Peter and Danny helped her break it in. End. If you liked this book you might like: Hell Dogs Squadron, and Seeking the Balance