.fic: The Technology - WaT/N&A x-over (D/M PG13) 2.4ish
Title: The Technology
By: HF
Emai: aesc36 @gmail.com
Pairing: D/M
Rating/Warning: PG/PG13-ish. Strange, possibly crackfic.
Disclaimer: Without a Trace belongs to CBS &c. And the fangirls were sore aggrieved. Now & Again belongs to CBS too. This also grieved the fangirls sorely.
Advertisements: Crossover with Now and Again.
Previous chapters: Chapter 01 (with all pertinent notes).
Notes: Am in the dizzyingly wonderful and rare position of having had a good and productive day. So here's another chapter, far earlier than anticipated.
CHAPTER TWO
The ride up to Queens was infused with that weird kind of speaking silence that says more than words ever could. Viv drove, not taking her eyes off the road even once, but Danny practically felt the complacency and curiosity pouring off of her. The only time Viv said anything, though, was to double-check directions to Martin’s apartment, but even that question sounded like a confirmation to Danny, like the only reason he’d know where Martin lived was that they were sleeping together.
That this pretty much was the only reason didn’t make it any better. Danny slouched in his seat and stared out the window.
Viv double-parked a short distance away from Martin’s place and they climbed out. Danny looked around anxiously, feeling ridiculous for expecting Martin to materialize out of nowhere, unscathed so Danny to shout at him for worrying the hell out of him and the rest of the team and not feel bad about it.
“How’s Martin been lately?” Viv asked, tone utterly professional. “Is there anything bothering him that you know about?”
“Martin’s been Martin,” Danny said curtly. Would Martin tell him if something was wrong? He thought back to the months just after Martin had been shot, having to drag Martin’s confession to self-medicating with Vicodin out of him. He’d like to think he would have earned Martin’s trust after that, but couldn’t be sure. He did not tell Viv this. “Nothing happened last night that I know of.”
They’d watched the evening news, and Martin had complained about midterm election politics. They’d had... what did they have for dinner, anyway? Chicken, maybe? And then they’d had sex, and that had been really good, Martin’s mouth soft on Danny’s skin and his voice even softer in the darkness.
Not that he told Viv that part.
“What did you do this morning?” Viv was looking at him now, dark eyes kind, and in a way that was worse than teasing, because it wasn’t teasing Danny about Martin, it was asking Danny about. Martin who was missing, and Viv wasn’t going to mess around.
“Got up around six-thirty, like always, made breakfast. Martin left to go running just before seven... I left at seven-thirty, had to do the Rowlings reports.” If he’d stayed, said the hell with finishing out the case on time, would he have realized what had happened earlier? In time to do something about it?
He knew he wouldn’t have, of course. Maybe, but even if he’d known twenty minutes after Martin had vanished, it wouldn’t have made any difference. Rafi going missing had taught him that.
Viv nodded thoughtfully and rang the buzzer for Martin’s apartment. Danny looked up and down the street, mentally willing Martin to appear, wondering at how strange the area seemed, like he’d never once been there. They’d gotten coffee at the cafe across the street almost every morning since Danny had started spending nights at Martin’s place, but looking at it now was like seeing it for the first time.
The super, a large graying man in a blue uniform shirt, poked his head out the door, raised an eyebrow when he saw Danny, then raised the other when Viv flashed her badge at him.
“Special Agent Vivian Johnson with the FBI, Mr...?”
“Charles Delaney.” The super opened the door more fully so they could step inside, his eyes still fixed on Danny. “What’s this about?”
Viv told him about Martin and asked when Delaney had seen him last. Delaney blinked and glanced at Danny with a look too bland not to be significant - so Danny’s frequent presence in the building hadn’t gone unnoticed - then said what Danny had fully expected to hear.
“Saw him heading out right before seven, looked like he was going for a run like he always does.”
“Thank you, Mr. Delaney,” Viv said, turning her back in dismissal. Delaney grunted in puzzlement, shrugged, and stumped off down the hall. “We should canvas the area first, see if anyone saw where Martin was headed. Does he have a typical route?”
“One or two,” Danny said. “But it’s fall now... he might go to Corona Park, a couple blocks down.” And he knew that because Martin had once told him he liked autumn a lot, had missed it in Seattle, which went from rain to more rain so the trees didn’t change.
“Okay then.” Viv led him back out onto the street, Danny feeling like a large, somewhat useless dog trailing along in Viv’s businesslike wake. They turned down the street in the direction of the park, stopping occasionally to ask people if they’d seen this man - holding up a blown-up version of Martin’s ID photo - in the area around seven that morning.
Everyone shook their heads, apologized, and moved on, and Danny’s frustration was mounting by the second. Viv walked quietly by his side, a steadying presence, and she was probably the only thing keeping Danny from losing it completely. They crossed the street and headed into the park, weaving through clots of joggers and mothers with strollers.
“Let’s ask her,” Viv said quietly, pointing through a group of tourists to a homeless woman who sat at the intersection of two footpaths, waving off a bicycle officer’s attempts to get her to move on and shouting something offensive at him. The officer retreated for the safety of his bike, climbed on, and pedaled away.
“She a regular?” Viv asked.
“I think so.” Danny was pretty sure he’d seen her, one of the few homeless people who ventured into the neighborhood.
The woman was muttering softly and fervently as they approached her, a lumpy figure in a heavy parka accompanied by a shopping cart. Viv coughed politely and she looked up, face windburned and eyes oddly sharp behind the bleariness of what Danny supposed was an ineffective antipsychotic. When the woman spoke, her voice was deep, fogged by cigarettes.
“You ain’t gonna make me move, are ya?”
“No, we’re not,” Viv said, infinitely patient and thank God she was here because Danny didn’t know if he was capable of being civil at the moment. Viv introduced herself and Danny - “I’m Marge,” the woman replied, as though daring them to make something of it - and asked if she’d seen the man in the picture.
He’s not ‘this man,’ goddammit. He’s Martin, Danny thought.
“’Course I saw him,” Marge said belligerently. “He damn near flattened me.” She paused and leered, displaying a mouthful of dirty teeth, the butt of a cigarette clenched in them. “Not that I would have minded being flattened, you understand.”
“Which way did he go?” Danny fought to hold on to his patience.
“Into the park.” Marge gestured vaguely in the direction of Corona Park with her cigarette. Danny scowled - of course Martin went into the park - and Marge frowned at him.
“Did you see anyone with him?” he asked, edge of impatience in the question.
“Y’all sure ask a lot of questions.” Marge expelled a frustrated lungful of smoke. “But yeah, I saw a bunch of guys, black suits, sunglasses comin’ after him. They’d run into me earlier too, when I was down the block, and they didn’t say pardon or anything.”
Viv glanced at Danny, worry leaching into her professionalism, and Danny swallowed against the sharp spike of fear.
“And these men were following him?”
“Oh, yeah, honey, they sure were.” Viv blinked, obviously startled to be addressed as ‘honey.’ Marge leered benignly at her. “The suits chased him over thataway.” She pointed down the path, to where it vanished in a stand of trees. “Didn’t see them come out; they mighta cut through, though. There’s a path goes through the woods.”
“Thank you,” Viv said, glancing up at Danny. “You’ve been a big help.”
Marge grunted and dug in her pocket for another cigarette.
They walked away, leaving Marge to her one-sided conversation and headed for the woods. And it really was a beautiful day, the sky an honest blue and the air still crisp, a soft breeze rustling dry leaves, and Danny and Viv looked like another pair of office workers cutting out early or out for a late-lunch stroll. Too unreal, and Danny suddenly felt sick.
“We’ll find him,” Viv said as they stepped into the shade of the woods, sounding far too confident, and Danny desperately wanted to agree with her.
* * *
When Martin woke up, the headache still lingered somewhere underneath his skull but the pain didn’t make his stomach twist when he turned his head to investigate his surroundings.
A hospital room it looked like, with plain tile floors and clinical green walls - a private room, he realized, windowless and featureless except for the overtones of antiseptic and the decidedly uncomfortable mattress. Unhappily, Martin inspected the IV hooked up to his arm and the monitoring devices ranged alongside his bed. The hieroglyphics on the screens told him little of what had happened to him, or what was wrong; he vaguely recalled starting his morning jog, then the sudden tightening of fear around his chest - someone had been chasing him, he remembered - then running straight into darkness, like running into a black wall. Nothing after that.
The room had no windows.
He blinked, startled by the utter banality of the thought and the sudden realization that it was probably important. No windows?
Martin craned his head to look behind him, glanced around one more time, and saw only the flat nausea-green of the walls, a heavy door in the wall opposite him and no window in that, either, only something that looked like the peephole of an apartment door.
Not right. Definitely not right. Anxiously, Martin glanced down at his hands and ankles, and breathed a sigh of relief when he saw he wasn’t restrained. He idly toyed with the thought that he’d contracted some highly contagious, lethal disease and had been quarantined while doctors searched desperately for a cure... but that was too X-Files, even for him.
Hesitantly, he sat up... and winced as his head throbbed and spun in protest. Swallowed against the bitterness of nausea and made himself stay sitting upright until it passed, which seemed to take forever. His body, enlivened by the brief movement, registered an astonishing assortment of aches and pains - the wound in his side that hadn’t quite healed ached fiercely, he’d fallen on his hip again goddammit, a sore elbow, and an odd sting in his thigh that made him pause.
Something had hit him? He vaguely remembered something like a bee sting, only worse. A killer bee, a bee with a stinger like a large-bore needle. Martin pushed the thin blanket down his legs and pulled aside the hospital gown - and having this stupid thing on was better than any restraints, because Martin certainly wasn’t about to make his escape in it - carefully touched the bandage halfway up the side of his right thigh. Dull pain radiated out from it in spokes.
Had he been shot? It didn’t feel like a bullet wound, and Martin had had enough of those to know.
“Tranquilizer dart,” said a deep, apologetic voice.
Martin’s head jerked up, pain racketing all along his temples now, but he ignored it, startled and angry, suddenly, that he’d been caught off-guard.
The man standing just inside the door looked vaguely familiar, dark skin and short hair, his suit fancy and immaculate. The man walked over to his bed and stood him, smile patronizing and assessing in a way that sort of reminded Martin of Danny.
Danny. Was he okay? Martin swallowed and made himself meet the man’s gaze.
“Ah, Agent Fitzgerald, back among the living.” The man sounded both pleased and annoyed. “How do you feel?”
“Where am I?”
“Tsk.” The man shook an admonitory finger at him. “Never answer a question with a question, Agent Fitzgerald. As a detective, you should know that.”
“Where am I?”
“In an undisclosed location, for your safety as well as...” The man stopped, mouth compressed in irritation. He crossed his arms over his chest, peering sternly down at Martin, and Martin was suddenly - forcibly - reminded of Viv. “Rest assured you are not in any danger. Well, at least, no immediate danger, but that remains to be seen.”
“Fine, then.” Martin heard the impatience in his voice and didn’t bother to hide it. “Who are you?”
“That, I can tell you.” The man drew himself up as though preparing to announce the arrival of a celebrity. “I am Dr. Theodore Morris.”
Great, a mad scientist. Just what he needed. Perfect. Martin wondered when the mad cackling was going to start.
Morris, however, seemed to be looking for something more than Martin’s perplexed expression and scowled when he didn’t get it. “I should tell you, Agent Fitzgerald, that you were as good as dead by the time you arrived here - no, strike that. You were dead. Etorphine hydrochloride does not mess around.” At Martin’s blank look, he added, “Rhinoceros tranquilizer.”
“Do I look like a rhinoceros to you?” Not the question he wanted to ask, but it was better than asking I was dead? I really was dead?
“Hardly.” Morris’s expression was impenetrable. “A regrettable mistake, and one for which Special Agent Number One will be doing penance. Now, I have to inform you that you’ll be here for... well, quite a while. I suggest you get comfortable.”
With that, Morris turned on his heel and stalked out, and Martin was alone again.
-tbc-
Notes: I know, even the tiniest drop of etorphine hydrochloride would probably kill Martin (it's used to bring down rhinoceroses and Oliphauntses and such), but it was the only really strong animal tranquilizer I could find, and besides, if Morris can transplant someone's brain into another body, reversing the effects of... well, death, is probably a snap.
By: HF
Emai: aesc36 @gmail.com
Pairing: D/M
Rating/Warning: PG/PG13-ish. Strange, possibly crackfic.
Disclaimer: Without a Trace belongs to CBS &c. And the fangirls were sore aggrieved. Now & Again belongs to CBS too. This also grieved the fangirls sorely.
Advertisements: Crossover with Now and Again.
Previous chapters: Chapter 01 (with all pertinent notes).
Notes: Am in the dizzyingly wonderful and rare position of having had a good and productive day. So here's another chapter, far earlier than anticipated.
CHAPTER TWO
The ride up to Queens was infused with that weird kind of speaking silence that says more than words ever could. Viv drove, not taking her eyes off the road even once, but Danny practically felt the complacency and curiosity pouring off of her. The only time Viv said anything, though, was to double-check directions to Martin’s apartment, but even that question sounded like a confirmation to Danny, like the only reason he’d know where Martin lived was that they were sleeping together.
That this pretty much was the only reason didn’t make it any better. Danny slouched in his seat and stared out the window.
Viv double-parked a short distance away from Martin’s place and they climbed out. Danny looked around anxiously, feeling ridiculous for expecting Martin to materialize out of nowhere, unscathed so Danny to shout at him for worrying the hell out of him and the rest of the team and not feel bad about it.
“How’s Martin been lately?” Viv asked, tone utterly professional. “Is there anything bothering him that you know about?”
“Martin’s been Martin,” Danny said curtly. Would Martin tell him if something was wrong? He thought back to the months just after Martin had been shot, having to drag Martin’s confession to self-medicating with Vicodin out of him. He’d like to think he would have earned Martin’s trust after that, but couldn’t be sure. He did not tell Viv this. “Nothing happened last night that I know of.”
They’d watched the evening news, and Martin had complained about midterm election politics. They’d had... what did they have for dinner, anyway? Chicken, maybe? And then they’d had sex, and that had been really good, Martin’s mouth soft on Danny’s skin and his voice even softer in the darkness.
Not that he told Viv that part.
“What did you do this morning?” Viv was looking at him now, dark eyes kind, and in a way that was worse than teasing, because it wasn’t teasing Danny about Martin, it was asking Danny about. Martin who was missing, and Viv wasn’t going to mess around.
“Got up around six-thirty, like always, made breakfast. Martin left to go running just before seven... I left at seven-thirty, had to do the Rowlings reports.” If he’d stayed, said the hell with finishing out the case on time, would he have realized what had happened earlier? In time to do something about it?
He knew he wouldn’t have, of course. Maybe, but even if he’d known twenty minutes after Martin had vanished, it wouldn’t have made any difference. Rafi going missing had taught him that.
Viv nodded thoughtfully and rang the buzzer for Martin’s apartment. Danny looked up and down the street, mentally willing Martin to appear, wondering at how strange the area seemed, like he’d never once been there. They’d gotten coffee at the cafe across the street almost every morning since Danny had started spending nights at Martin’s place, but looking at it now was like seeing it for the first time.
The super, a large graying man in a blue uniform shirt, poked his head out the door, raised an eyebrow when he saw Danny, then raised the other when Viv flashed her badge at him.
“Special Agent Vivian Johnson with the FBI, Mr...?”
“Charles Delaney.” The super opened the door more fully so they could step inside, his eyes still fixed on Danny. “What’s this about?”
Viv told him about Martin and asked when Delaney had seen him last. Delaney blinked and glanced at Danny with a look too bland not to be significant - so Danny’s frequent presence in the building hadn’t gone unnoticed - then said what Danny had fully expected to hear.
“Saw him heading out right before seven, looked like he was going for a run like he always does.”
“Thank you, Mr. Delaney,” Viv said, turning her back in dismissal. Delaney grunted in puzzlement, shrugged, and stumped off down the hall. “We should canvas the area first, see if anyone saw where Martin was headed. Does he have a typical route?”
“One or two,” Danny said. “But it’s fall now... he might go to Corona Park, a couple blocks down.” And he knew that because Martin had once told him he liked autumn a lot, had missed it in Seattle, which went from rain to more rain so the trees didn’t change.
“Okay then.” Viv led him back out onto the street, Danny feeling like a large, somewhat useless dog trailing along in Viv’s businesslike wake. They turned down the street in the direction of the park, stopping occasionally to ask people if they’d seen this man - holding up a blown-up version of Martin’s ID photo - in the area around seven that morning.
Everyone shook their heads, apologized, and moved on, and Danny’s frustration was mounting by the second. Viv walked quietly by his side, a steadying presence, and she was probably the only thing keeping Danny from losing it completely. They crossed the street and headed into the park, weaving through clots of joggers and mothers with strollers.
“Let’s ask her,” Viv said quietly, pointing through a group of tourists to a homeless woman who sat at the intersection of two footpaths, waving off a bicycle officer’s attempts to get her to move on and shouting something offensive at him. The officer retreated for the safety of his bike, climbed on, and pedaled away.
“She a regular?” Viv asked.
“I think so.” Danny was pretty sure he’d seen her, one of the few homeless people who ventured into the neighborhood.
The woman was muttering softly and fervently as they approached her, a lumpy figure in a heavy parka accompanied by a shopping cart. Viv coughed politely and she looked up, face windburned and eyes oddly sharp behind the bleariness of what Danny supposed was an ineffective antipsychotic. When the woman spoke, her voice was deep, fogged by cigarettes.
“You ain’t gonna make me move, are ya?”
“No, we’re not,” Viv said, infinitely patient and thank God she was here because Danny didn’t know if he was capable of being civil at the moment. Viv introduced herself and Danny - “I’m Marge,” the woman replied, as though daring them to make something of it - and asked if she’d seen the man in the picture.
He’s not ‘this man,’ goddammit. He’s Martin, Danny thought.
“’Course I saw him,” Marge said belligerently. “He damn near flattened me.” She paused and leered, displaying a mouthful of dirty teeth, the butt of a cigarette clenched in them. “Not that I would have minded being flattened, you understand.”
“Which way did he go?” Danny fought to hold on to his patience.
“Into the park.” Marge gestured vaguely in the direction of Corona Park with her cigarette. Danny scowled - of course Martin went into the park - and Marge frowned at him.
“Did you see anyone with him?” he asked, edge of impatience in the question.
“Y’all sure ask a lot of questions.” Marge expelled a frustrated lungful of smoke. “But yeah, I saw a bunch of guys, black suits, sunglasses comin’ after him. They’d run into me earlier too, when I was down the block, and they didn’t say pardon or anything.”
Viv glanced at Danny, worry leaching into her professionalism, and Danny swallowed against the sharp spike of fear.
“And these men were following him?”
“Oh, yeah, honey, they sure were.” Viv blinked, obviously startled to be addressed as ‘honey.’ Marge leered benignly at her. “The suits chased him over thataway.” She pointed down the path, to where it vanished in a stand of trees. “Didn’t see them come out; they mighta cut through, though. There’s a path goes through the woods.”
“Thank you,” Viv said, glancing up at Danny. “You’ve been a big help.”
Marge grunted and dug in her pocket for another cigarette.
They walked away, leaving Marge to her one-sided conversation and headed for the woods. And it really was a beautiful day, the sky an honest blue and the air still crisp, a soft breeze rustling dry leaves, and Danny and Viv looked like another pair of office workers cutting out early or out for a late-lunch stroll. Too unreal, and Danny suddenly felt sick.
“We’ll find him,” Viv said as they stepped into the shade of the woods, sounding far too confident, and Danny desperately wanted to agree with her.
* * *
When Martin woke up, the headache still lingered somewhere underneath his skull but the pain didn’t make his stomach twist when he turned his head to investigate his surroundings.
A hospital room it looked like, with plain tile floors and clinical green walls - a private room, he realized, windowless and featureless except for the overtones of antiseptic and the decidedly uncomfortable mattress. Unhappily, Martin inspected the IV hooked up to his arm and the monitoring devices ranged alongside his bed. The hieroglyphics on the screens told him little of what had happened to him, or what was wrong; he vaguely recalled starting his morning jog, then the sudden tightening of fear around his chest - someone had been chasing him, he remembered - then running straight into darkness, like running into a black wall. Nothing after that.
The room had no windows.
He blinked, startled by the utter banality of the thought and the sudden realization that it was probably important. No windows?
Martin craned his head to look behind him, glanced around one more time, and saw only the flat nausea-green of the walls, a heavy door in the wall opposite him and no window in that, either, only something that looked like the peephole of an apartment door.
Not right. Definitely not right. Anxiously, Martin glanced down at his hands and ankles, and breathed a sigh of relief when he saw he wasn’t restrained. He idly toyed with the thought that he’d contracted some highly contagious, lethal disease and had been quarantined while doctors searched desperately for a cure... but that was too X-Files, even for him.
Hesitantly, he sat up... and winced as his head throbbed and spun in protest. Swallowed against the bitterness of nausea and made himself stay sitting upright until it passed, which seemed to take forever. His body, enlivened by the brief movement, registered an astonishing assortment of aches and pains - the wound in his side that hadn’t quite healed ached fiercely, he’d fallen on his hip again goddammit, a sore elbow, and an odd sting in his thigh that made him pause.
Something had hit him? He vaguely remembered something like a bee sting, only worse. A killer bee, a bee with a stinger like a large-bore needle. Martin pushed the thin blanket down his legs and pulled aside the hospital gown - and having this stupid thing on was better than any restraints, because Martin certainly wasn’t about to make his escape in it - carefully touched the bandage halfway up the side of his right thigh. Dull pain radiated out from it in spokes.
Had he been shot? It didn’t feel like a bullet wound, and Martin had had enough of those to know.
“Tranquilizer dart,” said a deep, apologetic voice.
Martin’s head jerked up, pain racketing all along his temples now, but he ignored it, startled and angry, suddenly, that he’d been caught off-guard.
The man standing just inside the door looked vaguely familiar, dark skin and short hair, his suit fancy and immaculate. The man walked over to his bed and stood him, smile patronizing and assessing in a way that sort of reminded Martin of Danny.
Danny. Was he okay? Martin swallowed and made himself meet the man’s gaze.
“Ah, Agent Fitzgerald, back among the living.” The man sounded both pleased and annoyed. “How do you feel?”
“Where am I?”
“Tsk.” The man shook an admonitory finger at him. “Never answer a question with a question, Agent Fitzgerald. As a detective, you should know that.”
“Where am I?”
“In an undisclosed location, for your safety as well as...” The man stopped, mouth compressed in irritation. He crossed his arms over his chest, peering sternly down at Martin, and Martin was suddenly - forcibly - reminded of Viv. “Rest assured you are not in any danger. Well, at least, no immediate danger, but that remains to be seen.”
“Fine, then.” Martin heard the impatience in his voice and didn’t bother to hide it. “Who are you?”
“That, I can tell you.” The man drew himself up as though preparing to announce the arrival of a celebrity. “I am Dr. Theodore Morris.”
Great, a mad scientist. Just what he needed. Perfect. Martin wondered when the mad cackling was going to start.
Morris, however, seemed to be looking for something more than Martin’s perplexed expression and scowled when he didn’t get it. “I should tell you, Agent Fitzgerald, that you were as good as dead by the time you arrived here - no, strike that. You were dead. Etorphine hydrochloride does not mess around.” At Martin’s blank look, he added, “Rhinoceros tranquilizer.”
“Do I look like a rhinoceros to you?” Not the question he wanted to ask, but it was better than asking I was dead? I really was dead?
“Hardly.” Morris’s expression was impenetrable. “A regrettable mistake, and one for which Special Agent Number One will be doing penance. Now, I have to inform you that you’ll be here for... well, quite a while. I suggest you get comfortable.”
With that, Morris turned on his heel and stalked out, and Martin was alone again.
-tbc-
Notes: I know, even the tiniest drop of etorphine hydrochloride would probably kill Martin (it's used to bring down rhinoceroses and Oliphauntses and such), but it was the only really strong animal tranquilizer I could find, and besides, if Morris can transplant someone's brain into another body, reversing the effects of... well, death, is probably a snap.