Tabitha, who had left Orsisius’s, returned to find the House in a state of total bedlam. So she waited until she had the household settled down before cornering Liam and demanding an explanation. Liam, happy to oblige, wanting nothing more than to dump the matter in her lap for now, told her the whole story. He concluded saying “There is no question in my mind that she’s alive. There is also no question that he blames himself and he’s going to be extremely difficult, if you don’t mind my saying so, to deal with when he wakes up again.”

“Of course he is, you would be too, in his shoes," she snapped, having no interest in the obvious. "So where is Marc Rogatien?”

“I’ve no idea. He apparently sent Stephen back in that black box and after that, no one knows. Tabitha, about this morning…”

“No. Whatever you’re going to ask the answer is no, I am not discussing it.” She said it absently, her mind elsewhere.

“But I just wanted to know…”

“I know what you want to know and I’m telling you I’m not telling you. So say something useful or be quiet and let me think.”

He chose quiet.

Finally she spoke again. “He’s in the infirmary?”

“Yes, Baylee’s sitting with him.”

“Yes, that’s a problem. Alright. Thank you.” Tabitha stood to go.

“What are you going to do?”

“What I always do, go sit with him until he wakes up. Isn’t that what mothers do for their children? Oh, and before I forget, Cassidy’s arriving tomorrow, it might be good if you were there to welcome him since I very much doubt either Marc or Stephen will be.”

“Cassidy? Who’s he?”

“I don’t have time to explain. Tommy’ll tell you. Run along and ask him,” she said, waving him away. She left him digesting that comprehensive dismissal without a backward glance and made her way to the infirmary, feeling very old and very tired.

Baylee was sitting next to the bed, completely engrossed in her patient when Tabitha came bustling in. She found herself shooed out of the room in short order, not quite sure how it had happened and not happy about it either.

Tabitha, aware that her high handedness had annoyed Baylee was unmoved by the knowledge. In fact, the first think she did as she sat with her son was ponder the question of whether it would be better for all concerned, now that they knew Doni was alive, if Baylee was transferred back Home. After that she turned her attention to the issue of finding Doni and handling her son until they did. She had reached no firm conclusions there when he interrupted her thoughts. He was restless, struggling and crying out softly, lost somewhere in his dreams.

Stephen, even unconscious, kept looking for her. And in his dreams he found her, far in the distance. He could see her, every lovingly remembered detail of her, from the sheen of her hair to line of her neck and the curve of her back, he could hear her, hear her sobs of fear and pain and helplessness but she couldn’t see him. No matter what he did, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t get her to turn around so she’d know he was coming, he couldn’t yell loud enough for her to hear him. In his dreams as in life no matter how he struggled he couldn’t reach her and every time he thought he was getting closer she’d slip further away. It was worse than the wall…seeing her, knowing she needed him, knowing she thought he didn’t care, that he’d abandoned her.

And so a pattern began that would repeat itself for the next twenty hours. Tabitha would soothe him back into a deeper sleep and an hour or so later it would all start again.

Finally, late in the afternoon of the next day Stephen began to struggle upwards out of unconsciousness. The last time he’d done that he’d fought it all the way, not wanting to wake up. This time he was fighting to reach consciousness, fighting to wake up so he could keep looking for her. He emerged into wakefulness already reaching out with his mind beginning to pour himself into the bond only to find that every avenue he took was blocked, simply shut off from him.

In the battle of wills that followed Tabitha exerted just enough power to keep him contained, letting him tire himself fighting her while she contained every attempt to elude her control. She was succeeding admirably when Marc arrived, an event that surprised her not at all. She simply gathered Stephen's attempts and put them to one side while simultaneously demanding his attention, much as she had when he was child throwing a tantrum and waited for him to respond to her. And he did, finally.

"So," she said to him out loud, so Marc could hear her, "you done fussing now? You ready to talk about this like an adult and maybe do something productive or you want to keep fighting me like you’ve been doing?"

Stephen struggled into a sitting position, wincing as he did. Then, apparently deciding any other answer was futile, he said, simply, "Yes."

Marc was slumped in a chair nearby. He looked in not much better shape than Stephen. He'd a days growth of beard, his hair was mussed. He wore a pressure suit, form fitting. There were lines of fatigue under his eyes.

"I think I know where she is," he said to Stephen. "But we both need to be 100 percent if we want to get her out of there."

"I'm listening." Stephen said. "Where is she?"

"She's on Home, but in a sort of dimensional shift. Maybe part of why you couldn't sense her any more. More likely they've got her drugged too. Otherwise she'd have been trying to burn her way out to get to you. We'll need a plan and a lot of power. I think between us we've got the wattage. But I'm not in shape right now. Give me a little..." Marc's voice faded as his head slumped down on his chest.

Tabitha, wondering how his mama had stood him since he'd probably been like this since before birth, walked over and touched his wrist. He was just like Stephen only more so. He was also exhausted, as she'd expected. Then she started checking him out, making sure there wasn't something else wrong.

"Well, is he ok?" Stephen demanded.

"He's worn out and passed out and he won't be waking up for sometime, I'd say. And if you want to be any help at all when the time comes I'd suggest you eat something and then get some more rest yourself. " When he looked like he wanted to protest her edict she gave him a look he hadn't seen from her since he'd been eleven years and she'd caught him playing boys games and using his gifts to win. "Stephen, there's nothing you can do right now for her except rest. Do what you need to do now so you can do what she needs later," Tabitha said, conjuring a bed out of nothing before putting Marc in it. "Now, if you'll give me your word you'll behave, I'll get you some food."

Her look made it plain she was prepared to do most anything to get her way. She made him feel like he was a child again when she got like this. "All right."

When Stephen had dropped naked and unconscious out of Marc's CE rig, Liam had grabbed him and popped off to the infirmary.  Reno had been left standing there, staring at the rig, wondering just where in the universe Marc might be.

Reno had seen the CE rig before. It scared the bejeezus out of him. CE. Cerebral Enhancement. That was enough to terrify him, just the words alone. Never mind seeing Marc exit the thing, When he did, there were microspcopic needle marks all over the man's skull, blood oozing out for a few seconds at least until Marc's naturally occurring self-healing kicked in.

He'd also seen Marc naked. It was a rather frightening sight. He had scars. For a guy who was totally self regenerating, except for that clump of gray hair on his head, to still have scars... Well, Reno seriously did not want to think about what Marc had survived that left those scars on him.  He'd once asked Marc. His reply had been, "A pissed off lover."  Reno didn't believe that. Well, not most of the time anyway.

The rig was making hissing noises as its odd metal, impervious to almost anything he'd been told (and did believe that), expanded as it's icy exterior drew warmth from the room around it. Reno shivered.

He turned back to look at what was left of Stpehen's house. Not much, actually. There was even a crater. Probably where Stephen had been sitting. How the hell Marc had gotten him out of there in one piece...

There was an odd creaking sound, which Reno interpreted to be the full weight of the CE rig settling onto the wooden floor under it. The rug under it was probably  toast too.

Then, with no warning other than a sudden blast of icy wind, the rig disappeared.

So, Reno thought to himself. Maybe he's still alive? Or was the damn rig running on some sort of autopilot?

Christ.  He couldn't just stand here. On the other hand, what the hell should he do?  Well, for starters he should check on Stephen, and then... Well, maybe he'd just get drunk.

He walked to the infirmary, rather than popping up there. He needed the time to get his nerves back together again. Besides, his hearing seemed to be messed up a bit. Probably from the percussion of the blasts. The ringing in his head was annoying.

The infirmary, as he'd expected, was fully staffed, healers looking grim and determined, rushing around doing whatever the hell it was healers did. Reno saw Tabitha was there too. She looked calm and sure. So, Stephen was, he was quite certain, after seeing Tabitha's face, okay. Probably still out of it, but at least not dead.  That was a good thing, right?

Reno hesitated, and then turned on his heel. He'd just be in the way. And probably not wanted either.  So he decided to head on down to his and his boss' office. Maybe Tommy would be down there. He could ask Tommy how Stephen was. But really, Tommy was probably in the back room with Stephen.  Shit.

Reno found the hallway near the offices pretty deserted. There was a full team in the Ops Room but even they looked pretty gobsmacked by what had happened.

One of the team members, Michael Rove, who'd worked with Reno, came hurrying out of the Ops Room as Reno stood uncertainly in the hallway.

"You all right, Reno? You look a bit pale."

Reno mentally shook himself. "Yeah, I'm fine. How's Stephen?" he heard himself asking.

"Unconscious still but they can't find any real damage. They seem to think it is total exhaustion, so aren't pushing it beyond that."

"Good. Oh, someone should tell the team at the meadow," Reno muttered, more to himself than to Michael.

"No, Adam Clifford just came back and he's off to the site. They wanted a professional photographer. He's going to fill them in on what went on. Well, as much as any of us know."

"Right," Reno said, sort of deflated, as he'd sort of hoped that going out there to tell them what had happened, might have at least given him something to do.

Michael waved a good bye and hurried on whatever errand he was running, Reno walked down the hallway toward his office.

He saw lights in one other office, one he'd not seen used before.  He also heard the clicking of computer keys.

He came to a stop at the door.  Melly was bent over a computer screen intently doing something useful and logical, while he... just wandered around with...

Melly looked up then and smiled at him.

"Come on in. Sit down. You look kinda done in."

It was getting to be a habit. First he damn near faints from a broken foot, then he looks 'done in.'  Great.

But Reno did walk in and take a seat near Melly's desk.

"You okay?" Melly asked, but her attention was still on the computer screen.

"No, not really," Reno replied.

That got her attention. Not that he'd meant it to. It just sort of jumped out of his mouth before his brain had been turned on.  She looked worried.  "You weren't hurt, were you?" she asked. "We can get you up to the infirmary and have a healer check you out."

"No, it's okay. Other than the ringing in my ears, I'm good."

Melly leaned closer.

"What are you doing?" Reno asked, a bit panicked.

"I'm checking to see if you've got concussion," she replied, staring at his eyes.

"I didn't get hit on the head," Reno replied indignantly.

"No but the concussion of the blast could have knocked you down. It did, didn't it?"

"Nah. I dived for cover before it could."

"Okay, so your eyes look normal," Melly confirmed. "I feel better now."

"Gee, thanks."

"So, where's Marc?" Melly asked.

"No idea. What are you looking for?"

Melly tossed him some of the photos of what they'd dug up in Doni's grave.

"What the..." Reno breathed. "Obviously not Doni."

"Yeah, Stephen was looking for her."

"So, he's like certain she's alive?"

"It would seem so. Logically, I'd assume so too," Melly replied. "These things? I've seen pictures of them somewhere."