Stephen didn't ring the bell or even knock.  He just strolled up the walk from the building next door to the House, walked the stairs to the porch, reached out and opened the front door.  He looked like he fit the house and knew the house was waiting for him arrive.  It's how he arrived every day.  Most of the rest of came in the back way or zapped over if they were one of the newer folks who hadn't yet learned to not waste energy.  With his golden brown hair and steady hazel eyes that glinted gold to match, he as was lean, solid and fit as he'd been the day I met him.  Tall, but not overly so, he moved cleanly, easily and mostly comfortably, a man who knew his body and liked it. There was energy there, obviously contained, easily controlled and absolutely at his command, but there was also the sense that he had no need to rely on it.  He had other resources he would rely on first.

This morning, though he didn't know it, fate had several surprises in store for him.  Stephen was early, which may have been just one more coincidence…like Henry Simpkins stopping on that particular morning for his auto part, or the way The Reverend scheduled his errands in Maryland…who can say for sure.  Maybe he just wanted some quiet time to get caught up before the day started.  It doesn't matter.  He walked in the door just as Charlie Palmer sent his need raging into space and so he was there.

Stephen got to the on-duty office just as Cal Cahill started projecting onto the screen what Charlie saw, and it wasn't much because Charlie wasn't doing very well and his mind was only aware of Shelly.  Now Cal Cahill is able to take what he sees in the minds of others and project it visibly for others to see also.  It's as if he creates holograms in his head and sets them into time and space. That's what he was doing when Stephen arrived, that and ensuring that the hologram was taped in a normal, technological way.  He also functioned as a communications link between the teams and the Refuge in case something was needed.  This morning he was, as I say projecting what Charlie saw, but the outline was clear.  So Cahill reached and found The Reverend through his contact with Charlie's thigh.  The outline filled in and got ugly.  There were people everywhere, ankle deep in heavy snowfall, amid mangled auto bodies.

"Guy's name's Charlie, Charlie Palmer.  Woman's his wife.  No clue who the other dude is, just some Good Samaritan." Cahill's words were perfunctory.

Stephen, nodding that he'd heard, studied the projection for a short moment.  Then he did a mental roll call that brought Baylee, Thea and Liam.  That meant he had a healer, an empath and a forensic seer to work with.  He sighed.  Another channeller beside himself would have been nice, but there wasn't one available so he was going to have to come along, too.  And Baylee hadn't been out on a call since the stillbirth.  Technically she hadn't really returned to active duty on the teams.  He hadn't wanted her to.  Not yet, anyway.

He studied her dispassionately for a moment, seeing the long pencil straight brown hair that used to gleam and now seemed slightly dull, and the dark brown eyes that were always so solemn and guarded these days.  He examined the oval face, seeing the pale skin that was still just a little too pale and the smudges under the eyes.  He looked at her and tried to see not the woman but the person, not his friend but his colleague, trying to see her as if for the first time.  He couldn't.  The intensity of her emotional withdrawal from everyone worried him.

There were new lines at the corners of her mouth, as though she spent a lot of time pressing it closed, to keep all the sounds in.  She looked so tired and remained so distant, like she was boarded up against the world.  She was still grieving, as if grieving were really an active occupation.  It kept rearranging her, moving the bits of her around to new positions as if that would make the loss more bearable. He watched the grace in her motion and the weariness as she fingered her hair back from her face so she could see the scene better, her eyes narrowing in concentration.  But she was a healer and they definitely would need her.

Liam and Thea were studying the projection of Charlie.  Baylee's attention was moving from Charlie Palmer to the others in the scene. Stephen knew without checking that already she was seeing the need of each one, assessing it, preparing for it.  She was a healer and her need was to heal, her need and her talent.  She didn't choose to heal, but rather not heal.  It was one reason Stephen would be there…to keep her alive.  To keep her from killing herself to heal the others.

He took a deep breath, and sighed it out.  "I'll set the perimeter before you approach.  It's going to have to be wide, because of the field of view." He took another breath and turned from Thea's very calm grey eyes to lock onto an equally calm pair of brown ones. "Baylee, I'm telling you now, you can't get distracted by anyone else.  Do you understand what I'm saying? He isn't the only one hurt down there.  We all know that, but he's the only one we can afford to help." His voice got intense, the sense of will pressing will palpable.  "You have to ignore them.  Focus on Charlie Palmer and not his passenger or anyone else.  Let the EMT's handle the rest.  They're on their way, aren't they, Cahill?"

"Yeah, somebody called.  Can't tell ya who, though.  And they aren't gonna get through in a hurry, Stephen.  That highway's at a standstill from what I can pick up and the storm's making it worse." He paused for a minute, and holding up a finger for attention, said, "He's goin' inta deep shock.  You ain't got time for this, man."

"Ok, folks, get your gear and I'll see you there in two minutes." And Stephen was gone.  Between one breath and the next he winked out of the House and was present on the edge of the crowd around the wreck of Charlie Palmer's car.  Somewhere he'd acquired a parka and boots that hadn't been noticeable before.

Stephen took two seconds to get his bearings and survey the scene. The he reached, deep into the heart of the low pressure of the nor'easter bearing down on D.C. and yanked energy free like pulling cotton candy off the spinner and wrapped it into himself like putting it onto the cardboard cone.  Then he spun it fast, weaving it into time as if time were a tangible thing, as far as he could see, binding time into place.  He crooned to it as he wove, bringing the power and time itself dancing into his control like leading a woman into a waltz.  He whispered endearments to it, slowing it down until it seemed to stop, hovering on the edge of one tick of a second changing into the next one.  The others appeared just as he finished.

The scene had been a constantly shifting bucket of motion and noise. Now it was a still life.  Even the snow had stopped, suspended in space, and caught dancing in the air but now hanging motionless.  It never failed to amaze him what time produced, and his control of energy could do to time.  Everything was suspended like it was caught in amber.  The experts had told him once that he'd not really stopped time completely, just slowed it down to something similar to the rate of flow of glass.  The others, now also bundled against the cold, were moving towards the car and the urgency they felt began to be felt by him, pumping blood into his fingers and sending his feet moving towards Charlie Palmer.

There was blood everywhere.  He noticed that, vaguely, just as he noticed the damage to Shelly's skull and the bulge of her belly.  But what got his attention and held it fast was the murmur of a voice where there shouldn't have been one.  That voice had halted Thea and Liam, though Baylee, true to her calling had probably noted it but was ignoring it as irrelevant to her.  Her need was saving Charlie's life and she was doing that, to the exclusion of all else.  Let Stephen deal with the bizarre.

Liam's head was cocked to the side, slightly, as though trying to get better audio reception.  The look on his face was just plain stunned. But his lips were moving in unison with the words that shouldn't have been there.  They were moving as if powered by forces beyond his volition.  Thea just let out a low, hissed 'Stephen'.  She reached for his mind, with a louder, more emphatic, 'what the hell…?' that reached Liam too and brought him up short.  He stopped moving his lips.

Latin was the thought that came to him as he listened.  This man was speaking…no, he was praying in Latin...and he reached carefully, cautiously and touched him, the surface of him, looking for the spam advertising that cluttered everyone's surface thoughts…and found none, not a single bit.  The surface was a smooth piece of stone without a thing on it, in front of it or leading to it.  This man was definitely not your usual morning commuter.  Stephen pushed on the stone and almost shouted when the stone pushed back and the thought came, peevish and indignant, 'can I help you?' The praying had stopped.

The pray-er was regarding him patiently…yes, thought Stephen, patiently, as though he, Stephen, were a child interrupting important adult business.  Steadily too as if there was all the time in the world.  But not surprised, not startled and not in the least bothered by the fact that someone had just tried to probe his thoughts.  Nor, he reminded himself, was this man affected at all by the perimeter that had everyone else immobilized and oblivious to what was happening.  For this pray-er, time still flowed, and it shouldn't.

'Who are you?'

"I am The Reverend Daniel Dudley Day, Knight of Christ." Written, it probably would have appeared in all capital letters.  The air of pomposity was an incongruous hilarity.  Nobody laughed.

Stephen stifled the impulse to expel an 'oh.' Then he said it.  'Oh.' And felt so stupid for doing it he would forever blame the rest of that morning on it.  He said it again.  He swore.  Then he got back to business just in time to watch Baylee break all the rules.

Baylee, aglow in healing mode, almost as bloody as Charlie Palmer, zapped him out of there the minute Thea separated his mind and heart from Shelly's and had contained his rage.  One minute Charlie was there and the next he was gone, and Thea with him.  Then Baylee began sending flowing shimmering energy all over the woman in the passenger seat. Charlie gone was fine, no problem, he knew where they'd gone.  Normally that would have meant they were basically done here and could get the hell out before the time flow difference between his perimeter and the rest of the world became a problem.  But not this time.  Oh no, not this time.

As soon as Charlie was gone, the pray-er, who'd been using him for balance tilted forward and then teetered backwards, landing on his ass in the snow, legs tangled in the air.  Baylee just flowed right past him.  Literally, really.  It was like there was no body there, just shimmering energy.  Her only reality was the pregnant woman in the car. The Reverend was just an obstacle to get past.  The Reverend did not take it well, though whether it was the falling flat on his backside or Baylee was never really clear.  Everybody else just gaped it happened so fast.  We looked like something out of 'toon town.  And then it got worse. 

See, the gifts, like healing or even the –pathic gifts, all require energy to manifest and be used.  They don't come free and they don't come cheap.  The great gifts like healing require enormous amounts of energy, both from the healer and the one being healed.  And if there is no energy available from the one being healed, like in Shelly's case, the lack is made up by the healer.  Baylee was using herself up like to heal Shelly and save the babies.  Shelly was beyond healing, but to save the babies Shelly had to stay alive at least in a mechanical sense, with her heart pumping and her lungs oxygenating her blood. 

Stephen, who had seen this many times before with Doni and other healers, never missed a beat.  He reached again, into the storm, creating a flood tide of power rushing into himself that made him look like Baylee's twin.  Now it was longer a dance between lovers, he and the power; now it was a war.  He fought it, molding it into a force contained and controlled by his will alone.  The power raged against him and the smell of ozone filled the air while lightening crashed, thunder began and DC and environs were treated to that rare meteorological event known as thunder snow.  Stephen didn't care.  He won just enough control to now reach for Baylee, who was oblivious to everything except the woman and the babies. 

Baylee had became the beat of Shelly's heart and the air in her lungs. She was burning energy so fast she would be dead herself in seconds when Stephen found her.  He linked with her in that way that made channeling one of the great gifts, linked on a molecular level and began feeding energy into her for her to feed to Shelly in the form of a heart beat and a breath.  Then with a demand for cooperation she got what she needed, Stephen accelerating time within the confines of Shelly's womb. Energy from the storm, channeled through Stephen and into her, while the two of them turned time into a medium within the confines of three dimensions.  And that's why DC got an extra six inches that day. Stephen stalled the storm smack on top of the city while he and Baylee worked to save the babies, both of them looking like a sun going nova.

 There was now no way to separate Baylee from Shelly without Baylee's cooperation.  In doing what he did to save Baylee he'd chosen not to break the healing bond between her and Shelly.  In actively helping her he crossed a line in the sand he hadn't realized he was ready to cross. Through it all he became aware of that light, soft as thistle down sense of Doni in his mind, that awareness of her that came so seldom but was so real like she was still there with him.  With it came the scent of her.  Then it was gone.

Minutes passed, or maybe it was seconds.  Baylee was starting to ease back from Shelly, and Stephen, sensing it, eased back as well.  He began to disengage as Baylee regained conscious control.  Then, just as he pulled free, Baylee and the woman disappeared.

Stephen, dissipating power like a wet dog, swore again, out loud and for a long time.  Then he turned to The Reverend, who was the least and easiest of his immediate problems. 

Stephen looked down at The Reverend, still flat on his backside and with something of a bemused look on his face.  Grateful that it wasn't terror, shock or incipient hysteria, all of which he'd coped with in his time, he reached a hand down to help the man up.

"My name is Stephen and my friend over there is Liam.  I believe you said your name is Daniel Day?"

"Yes, that's right.  The Reverend Daniel Dudley Day, Knight of Christ"

Once again Stephen stopped the 'oh' before it escaped.  "It was kind of you to stop to help them."

"I am a priest.  It was my duty." Stephen began to wonder what the man was like at a party.  He couldn't possibly be as pompous as he sounded.

 Yes, well…You see, I'll be frank here…"

"Do." The one word emerged as an order.  "All of this is highly irregular.  I really don't understand what's been happening here.  Who are you people? And what happened to the people in the car? That man needs medical attention immediately."

"Yes, well…you may be sure that he is in good hands.  He paused, debating how to say what he had to say.  The Reverend could not be allowed to wonder around loose, talking about this morning's events to all and sundry without some…well…education.  Most likely no one would believe him.  That wasn't the risk.  The real risk was that his story would end up as the headline for the next edition of the National Enquirer and that spelled trouble. And, there was the interesting fact that the man had at least some of the –pathic gifts.  "Reverend, I am truly sorry to have to say this, but I am afraid I am not at going to be able to answer those questions.  At least not right now.  Right now I want very much to get out of this snow and into someplace warm.  I am sure you would like to get out of those wet clothes yourself.  Perhaps we could talk in your car?"

No response.  The Reverend just continued to look at him steadily, confident his demand for information would not be denied. 

He knew Cahill was still monitoring the situation.  He wouldn't stop until they were all out of there.  So he said, -pathically, "Cal, find Tommy and have him send someone out here will you.  Tell him I'll need them to move a car.  And send someone over to Clem and tell him I'm bringing him a guest." Cal's "Right, sir" came back clear and cheerful.

 "Reverend, for reasons I won't bore you with, it's rather important that we finish up here and be on our way.  And since it's clear you aren't going to be able to move your car anytime soon perhaps you'd like to join us? We could at least, in view of your help, drop you where ever you were going." The Reverend remained mute.  It didn't matter. Stephen had most of what he needed.  He knew how to find his car.  As soon as he'd mentioned it The Reverend had made the association.  The rest could wait.  So he did, in silence as well, until he saw from The Reverend's face that help had arrived.  By then he'd determined two other things.  The Reverend was trying to read his mind but couldn't, and that he was an impatient man who had learned to project patience. The act left him wide open. 

Not turning, keeping his eyes on The Reverend, knowing Liam was in position behind him, he said, "The car is the black sedan, motor running, about ten cars back.  As soon as the traffic breaks please get it out of sight and then back to the garage.  You know the drill.  We'll see you back at the House."

The Reverend, reacting as expected, was startled into speech.  "You can't do that! That's the cardinal's car! Hey! Stop right there!" The Reverend moved to follow the driver and walked into Liam's arms. "Let go of me!" On the instant Liam winked out of there, Reverend and all. 

Stephen thanked God for small favors.  Then he cleaned up and got out of there himself.

As for Stephen's driver, he, like all the commuters stuck on the Beltway, would be there for another four or five hours at least before he got home.