Midnight Medicine: Chapter 17
After a shamefully long delay, here is Chapter 17 of Midnight Medicine!
Thank you to everyone who is sticking with this fic, and especially to those who comment on it. I promise from chapter one it has had a plan and a plot that will be seen through to the finish, and hopefully with much more frequent updates than the last few, so please don't think I am aimlessly throwing various characters in peril with each new chapter!
I hope you enjoy this update, but as ever, let me know:
Ragged was how Wilson was feeling; his brain seemed to be ripping apart at the seams, his breathing tearing through his chest and his heart skittering unevenly against his ribs. He took another step around the table, his pace perfectly matched by the man prowling after him, and together they slowly traced the outline of a circle on the stone floor.
It was silent. It was like dancing with his reflection, or his shadow: a lifeless, muted mirror-man.
Flooded with adrenaline, thoughts un-spooling frantically, gaze fixed on the calm face of his opponent, Wilson found himself marvelling again that just hours ago, in some other lifetime, he had been sitting at his desk, ploughing through paperwork and sipping lukewarm coffee (how could he have ever complained of being bored in the Eden of his warm, safe office?), and now . . . Now, he was teetering on the brink of cardiac arrest . . .
He edged sideways, poised for that sudden lurch that had to be coming from the other man, his every nerve jangling in anticipation --- any second now, any second, he'd jump at him ----
Wilson stumbled, and glanced down, certain even as he did so that this moment of distraction would be all the man needed to launch at him. He'd tripped over the unconscious body of the woman that he'd left on the ground. The woman who had hurt his friend; the woman whom he, a doctor, had left for dead on the floor; who had tied him up and locked him up and stroked his cheek with icy fingers, and he was suddenly assaulted by a wave of fury. This wasn't how people were supposed to act; those shouldn't be his memories, this shouldn't be his present - his life had been hijacked. Wilson came to a sudden stop. This was ridiculous.
The man froze with his stillness, and Wilson licked his dry lips, outstretching an arm in a conciliatory gesture. This was just one man. Wilson could fight him if he had too; House had been weak, dazed, when he'd assessed the guy's ability. But why did he have to, when Wilson didn't even know what he wanted, or what he was thinking? People talk, he thought, and in the eerie silence the words seemed to echo loudly around his head. They yell, or bully, or threaten, or plead - they negotiate. Wilson was good at talking to people; he was fairly certain that he wasn't any good at wrestling tall, angry men in freezing cellars. Play to your strengths, he thought, with the wild optimism that only terror can inspire.
"Look, this . . . this isn't necessary!" The man cocked his head, looking at Wilson appraisingly, and Wilson felt encouraged, stepping closer until he reached the table. Maybe House hadn't been able to reason with him, but Wilson couldn't think of anyone less reasonable than House --
"I don't want to have to fight you," he said, hoping the man couldn't hear the unspoken 'because I'd lose' that underscored his sentiments. "What's this about?" The man took a step closer, still apparently considering Wilson's words. "There's no reason why we should --" His voice trailed off as the man bent down behind the table, vanishing momentarily from his sight. " . . Hello?" This is good, thought Wilson, despite his confusion; this has to be good, we're not punching each other, he's not screaming at me, this is the closest thing to a civilized conversation I've had since I found House -
When the man stood up, he was gripping the axe in his hand. The bottom fell out of Wilson's stomach.
"Run, you jackass!"
The blade swung upwards in a lazy arc, and the man walked casually forward, aiming the axe-head at the stunned doctor in front of him. Wilson fell backwards, dodging the blow that buried the axe in the table in front of him. In the table. The surface of the hard, cold stone was cracked through with a jagged black line. Wilson gaped at it.
"Wilson, run!" House's shout bypassed Wilson's stuttering brain and went straight to his legs. He scrambled to his feet and tore away from the table as the man glanced down, unperturbed, at his handiwork, and started after his prey again. I'm being chased by an axe-murderer. The mute horror at what had just happened was replaced by an urge to laugh hysterically. He fought it; he couldn't afford to lose his wind now, when his heart was hammering and his breath coming in shallow bursts. Wilson could hear footsteps behind him; they weren't running like his, they marched with a kind of indomitable rhythm, and no matter how fast he ran, the distance between them didn't seemed to widen . . .
"Left!" Wilson swerved away from the wall he had been blindly hurtling towards, and found himself dashing up the stairway he had only recently descended. "Run and think!" bawled House from below him. "Don't let him corner you!"
The stairs were running out ahead of him; Wilson darted to the right and prayed the path kept going, and for once allowed himself to give into his urge to scream at House: "Go away!" The footsteps were too close behind him; not knowing how close they were almost made him want to stop, and get caught, and end the terrifying pursuit that could only end one way, . . .
But at least he had a chance. House had to get out of here, or all this was for nothing, because once Wilson fell, House was next, and House couldn't run, and so he had to. And it wasn't because he wanted to die, or wanted House to live more than he wanted to live himself . . . Rather, it was that the truth of their situation had sunk into his unconscious mind like a lead-weight: to save himself was to sacrifice House. Infinitely attractive as option one was, option two didn't even occur to him. There simply wasn't a choice.
Pulse pounding in his ears, his vision seeming to contract and blacken with every thump, Wilson completed the semi-circular path the metal balcony had laid out before him, and started down the stairway that was directly opposite the one he had come up, on the far side of the cavernous room. Steps were missing on this flight; the railing came loose in his hand as he grabbed at it, and he realised it had been wrenched loose from behind him, and then he wasn't so much running as progressing in a controlled plummet; the last three stairs snapped under his weight and he rolled to the ground, sprawling on his back, and was finally awarded a glimpse of his pursuer.
The man was expressionless, and calm, and marching after him relentlessly, ten stairs above him. The metal rod he had snapped from the stairwell fell carelessly from his hand: he wasn't even out of breath. With a moan of fury at the utter unfairness of it all, Wilson stumbled to his feet and ran forwards again, back around the table, spinning around, hoping to resume the edging dance once more. It had been nerve-wracking, but at least he'd been able to breathe -
But the strange, silent man didn't even pause, and Wilson staggered backwards, facing his pursuer as he felt his back hit the wall. He was going to faint; he hadn't run like this since he was a kid, and he'd been practically hyperventilating before he'd started -
He risked a glance at the archway, and his heart seemed to miss a beat.
House had gone.
It took a second, and then Wilson remembered, that that was exactly what he'd wanted. He turned back, yelped at the outstretched hand swiping towards him, and shot off again in a haphazard loop around the chamber; going nowhere, getting nowhere, just staying away from the one following him. He'd never been any good at tag.
And now, he noticed with a strange kind of detachment after a second loop of the room, he was heading towards the archway himself; towards Angel and Buffy and all those other maniacs who suddenly looked much more attractive; who had promised to help him, promised safety -
A foot from the doorway, he found himself faltering. Within three seconds of rounding the corner, he might lead the man behind him straight to the one person he'd been trying to protect, who surely couldn't be far away -
His moment's hesitation was enough. A hand closed on his collar, he was lifted off his feet and thrown into the air, landing with a stupefying smack onto the stone floor. Stars twinkled at him.
But they winked out, one by one, blazing red on his retina, and Wilson tried to drag himself backwards, into a sitting position, as the luminous dots resolved themselves into the dark shadow of a man standing over him. Everything inside him congealed as he realised, with a kind of amazement, that he wasn't going to get away. Despite everything, he'd never really believed - or maybe he just hadn't thought ahead, and considered the price that he would be paying . . .
Very slowly, the man raised his hand (the hand that had split stone, torn metal), and Wilson tried to curl into a ball, bringing his hands over his head, jamming his eyes closed, waiting helplessly for -
CRACK!
The sound, then the pain, then --
Was he already dead? The skull-splitting agony never came; his breath was still coming in frantic gulps . . . Wilson opened his eyes, braced for the iron-hard blow of a fist . . .
House stood over him, cane raised like a club, like he'd stood all those years ago after a swing when they'd played golf together, and in front of him the man who'd been chasing him was standing -- was swaying -
He fell forwards as if in slow motion, and Wilson rolled out of the way, as that massive, impassive body hit the ground with a shuddering thud. House lowered the cane, and grinned. "You're right. Turns out teamwork can be fun."
Wilson didn't say anything. Partly because his brain was trying to focus the fact that his face was still in one piece, but mainly because he was gasping too hard to talk.
"I'd help you up, but I'd probably fall over, and then we'd both be on our asses." He shook his arm and winced. "I think that would have taken a normal guy's head off." Wilson still didn't say anything, still stunned. House looked down at him as if he was a particularly troublesome x-ray. "You planning on sitting there long?"
"What -- How did you -- Where -- ?"
"All good questions," agreed House, looking slightly flushed with adrenaline and significantly better than he'd looked ten minutes earlier. "I've been there the whole time." He nodded to the shadows under the archway, where the darkness was at its most impenetrable. "I figured you'd have to come this way eventually, if you weren't actually planning on dying." He managed to make it sound like an accusation, and scowled. "Only you could give what should have been self-evident Darwinism a Disney twist! That was the stupidest thing . . . " He trailed off as he stared down at Wilson, dishevelled and breathless and wide-eyed at his feet.
" . . Are you ok?"
Wilson made a choked sort of noise in response, and crawled to his feet, still looking dazed. He stared at the now-quiet room and its two slumped bodies, and the axe protruding defiantly from the ancient table, and finally at House, his eyes piercing through the darkness, looking at him with a strange expression of worry and anger and apology. "He's not waking up," said House, catching his glance towards the felled man. "At least, not for a while. That whole racing-for-your-life part is over."
"Oh. Well," said Wilson. "We must do this again some time." He turned back towards the archway, feeling his heart gradually slow in his chest, marvelling that he hadn't stressed it into exploding inside him. Beside him, House took his arm. It wasn't until several seconds later that Wilson realised it was probably because he still needed someone to lean on.
"Let's get the hell out of here," he muttered, and without a backwards glance, they stepped into the absolute darkness of the corridor before them. Wilson took his penlight from his pocket, and shone the tiny beam so that it flashed like a firefly in a cave.
The floor was rocky, and here and there his torch fell upon small mounds of ash that inexplicably littered the passageway. Beside him he heard the pop of the Vicodin container, and tightened his supporting grip on House's arm. For once, House didn't snap anything at him, but squeezed back with a sort of firmness that felt like an assertion to Wilson - he was probably still light-headed from lack of oxygen, he thought, - because it almost felt like a silent gesture of thanks.
Noises, distilled by the distance into a low, murmuring buzz, floated down the corridor. In the glow of the penlight they looked at each other, and moved forwards cautiously. The atmosphere felt close, and airless; it carried what felt like a centuries old chill that you found in underground caverns, and the walls under Wilson's fingertips seemed to be getting rougher and rockier as they moved away from what must have been the central warehouse. They were going underground, and Wilson wondered if they should turn back; but this was where the others must have gone . . .
House stumbled over something and cursed; they shone the beam down, and both jumped backwards in shock.
Spike's unconscious face, glowing bone-white below them, was laid out against the ground, a long streak of dark blood marking its pathway down from his temple. He didn't stir at their mutual cries of shock, or from the thrum of voices emanating from the end of the corridor.
"Concussed," murmured Wilson.
"That's one less thing to worry about," said House in satisfaction. He suddenly looked much brighter. He gave the unconscious man a brutal jab with his cane as they stepped around him, and snarled down at the white face venomously. "I'll give him quack."
The blackness was like a solid mass around them; the little white line of the torch barely pierced the gloom. Wilson spoke more from the urge to fill up the darkness than anything else;
"He kidnapped me, he captured you, and you're pissed because he insulted your medical prowess?"
"The man couldn't tell a colon from a kidney, and then he - "
A blaze of light erupted from nowhere; a flaming lantern blinded the two of them for a second, and before they could see, they felt hands grasping them, pulling them forwards, and they both stumbled.
"Hey --!"
"Cripple here -- "
The hands didn't slacken, and Wilson made out the pale blur of Angel's face in front of him, and Giles urging them forwards, looking worried.
"Hurry, this way!"
House wrenched himself away, massaging his thigh and glowering at them. "This is my maximum speed," he snapped, apparently not relieved that help had presented itself, given its manner of presentation. "Hands off." Angel didn't say a word; he simply seized House by the jacket and practically dragged him forwards. Wilson's protest was cut off as he felt Giles doing the same to him, too dizzy to immediately push him away.
"Now! We need your help!" hissed Giles frantically. "It's Buffy - she needs a doctor -"
"What's wrong -?" started House, but Angel shook his head and forced them forwards, towards the rising wail of voices that Wilson now realised sounded panicked and lost.
"You better be good," Angel said, and the look in his eye made Wilson's insides contract for the second time that hour. "You have to help her . . . If you can't save her, -- "
"Yeah, then she'll be dead," said House somewhat unsympathetically - largely due to the fact that he and his bad leg were being hauled unceremoniously over the uneven ground. "We know the drill."
"We'll do everything we can," said Wilson reassuringly, stumbling to keep up. "We know what we're doing -- "
"Not with this," said Angel darkly. "Even I don't know what . . ." He looked anguished.
"She'll be fine," said Giles tightly, white-faced and resolute. "She has to be. We're not leaving without Buffy."
Wilson was sure House would never abandon the girl either, but the man had to find some way to vent the agony coursing through his leg, and he watched with a sinking feeling as House opened his mouth to retort. But before he could say anything, before Wilson could interrupt him from snapping out anything too appalling that would result in their being abandoned in the darkness, Giles spoke.
"You'd better know what you're doing, and you'd better try your damned hardest as well, Doctor House, because let me tell you -- ," his voice rang through the half-light, and the contrast of the frightened noises from ahead of them seemed to lend his words an extra weight -- "Let me tell you, that without the Slayer, . . . none of us are getting out of here alive."