FIC: 30 Days (Part I) (NC-17) for nuraya

[lauand]

Author: lauand
Beta: avierra
Recipient: nuraya
Title: 30 Days
Rating: NC-17
Characters/Pairing(s): Crawford/Schuldig, Nagi, Farfarello.
Summary: Schuldig fucks up. He has 30 days to fix it.
Warnings/Content: Canon events are mentioned but not explained, to have a certain knowledge or Kapitel would help understanding the timeline better.
Word Count: 32.500, more or less.
Author's Notes: I can't really start to thank avierra for all the help she has offered me with this. I want everyone to know that this fic wouldn't be here today if it weren't for her. Words fail me. I touched this last, any remaining mistake is my own. I also wanted to thank the mods, midnitemaraud_r and red_squared for their enormous patience with me, extending my deadline once and again and being as helpful as they could. And, of course, I wouldn't have ever tried to write a plot-driven story without nuraya's prompt. Sorry for the lengthy notes, I felt it necessary to thank all the people who have made this fic possible.



30.

There was a very particular sensation you felt when the sudden realization of having fucked up big time hit you full force. It started somewhere inside your trunk, your chest, your stomach, half and half... it was difficult to pinpoint. It was like your hairs were rising on your guts giving you inner goosebumps. Very ominous, materially impossible goosebumps. Then it spread. And you ended up not being sure it was cold or heat you were feeling when suddenly you had no weight because your entire mass had turned into fear and denial.

"It can't be..."

It was very much like being a living, mute pipe-organ. No sound, all sinister vibration.

Schuldig hated that sensation on the occasions he felt it. He looked at the man lying on the bed.

Schuldig hated that sensation now.

The voice startled him. How much more could he screw up?

"...Schuldig?"

"Shh..." he hushed. It's never difficult to push a suggestion to a mind that's only partially awake, "...sleep on."

It shouldn't have been so surprising, then, when Crawford obeyed. But it was. Schuldig kept still for a while. His palms were sweaty, alarm tingling on every fiber. Finally, he got up and went out of the room without bothering to wipe the encounter from Crawford's hazy mind.

29.

Schuldig stared at the ceiling so hard that he expected to drill a hole in it anytime now. It was too soon to try and take another look. Patience was not his strong point, though. He forced himself to blink. All day long, all of last night, he had tried to find the catch, to no avail. It was no trick, it just wasn't there anymore. It should be like those occasions when you couldn't find a pen you were sure you had left on the table and, after a while, you realize you were holding it in your hand. Only, the pen wasn't there. Not on the table, not in the hand. No pen.

Schuldig blinked again.

But the thing was that he was sure to have left it there. Hidden, sure, but there. He had done it a gazillion times before. And Schuldig didn't make mistakes. Never. Not in relation to...

"My name's Schuldig."

"That is not truly a name."

"My name's Schuldig."

He suppressed the useless memory. This was not the time. That had been different. That had been intentional. He didn't make mistakes.

Once again, Schuldig went over what had happened three days ago. Everything had gone smoothly, perfectly even. Then Crawford had gone and come back. And last night, suddenly, it wasn't there anymore. It wasn't there.

He forgot to blink.

He didn't know what to do.

It was driving him crazy.

28.

"I won't do your dishes, Schuldig."

"Aww, come on, and why ever not? It's not as if you actually get your hands dirty or anything."

Nagi finished drying his glass and floated it to the cupboard. He then closed its door. All without getting up from his place at the kitchen table.

"It's a matter of principle. You don't work for free, either," Nagi reminded him.

Schuldig pouted.

"You're a bad person, Naoe-san."

"Yes," Nagi agreed.

The sound of regular, firm footsteps preceded the appearance of a Crawford, who was just adjusting his tie.

"Schuldig, get the car. Farfarello is in trouble," he said.

With a smirk, Schuldig got up.

"See?" he cheerfully remarked. "I'm cleaning up after Farfarello. I can't see why you won't clean up after me."

Crawford called his name again, this time from the hall.

Schuldig's smirk vacillated for less than a second before he went to get his coat and keys.

------------

The ceiling hadn't changed much in the last 16 hours, he had to admit. But at least some things had. His mindset, for one. It was obvious that he couldn't ask Crawford. He was sure he hadn't made a mistake. That left only one way to go. He had to find it himself. It had to be there, somewhere. It had to.

He had tried a preliminary exploration, but telepathy was the gift which depended the most on distance. His range was quite good and he knew it, but this was not the time to gamble. No, not the time at all.

So he lay there waiting for everybody else to fall asleep.

---------------

It was not the wisest idea, but Schuldig closed the door after him. He had trouble concentrating when he knew there was an open door nearby. He found them unsettling. Anyway, he wasn't five anymore. He didn't have the kind of problems that were solved by running when you were caught. Now, getting caught was rather the problem.

Schuldig easily recognized when he was stalling to avoid a task he wasn't particularly willing to undertake, but he decided to indulge himself for once. There was something painfully appealing in Crawford when he was asleep. Schuldig could walk past the Mona Lisa without looking at it once, he could even set it on fire without a second thought, but he believed it a crime against life itself not to stop to watch Crawford in his slumber.

Do you dream of the future? He thought at him. Do you ever dream of...?

Carefully, Schuldig sat on the bed. Crawford had ridiculously long lashes for a man. Totally at odds with his jaw. With his shoulders. With his fists. With who he was.

Contact would help, but Schuldig was moderately sure that it would wake him up. He was already taking too many risks as it were.

With a sigh, he dove in.

It took him a while to find himself. Crawford's mind was shielded quite differently than his own. Schuldig's barriers were mostly global and structured in layers, the most external ones against the pressure of people's thoughts, against the noise and interferences. The inner ones against attacks, blunt invasions and sneaky scryings. Closest to his core, the special shields that made his secrets invisible-like his mental room.

In contrast, Crawford's mind was fragmented in a million departments, all at the same level, each of them with its particular shield independent from the others. Schuldig supposed that precognitives needed to separate their visions, the unnumbered futures, from the interpretations they made of them, and this particular compartmentalization was the way to achieve it. The fact that Crawford's segments felt exactly the same, no matter if they were memories, visions, opinions or sensations was what made Schuldig hate getting into Crawford's head so much. Without a deep understanding of his tight-assed leader's classification system it was always a nightmare to find his way around his mind. He had the suspicion that it was another security measure against unwanted interference. That didn't make him empathize, though, or like his task any better.

Thoughts, no matter how compartmentalized, were always linked to each other through a network of associations. Schuldig just needed to surpass a shield to get at least a partial access to that network and locate the memories he was searching for.

It was not the first time he was here. He didn't get how Crawford's mind really worked, but he was familiar enough with it to know that the shields were impressive against direct blows but moderately weak against subtle approaches. Very much like reinforced doors, resisting a hammer but not a skilled lock-pick. Another remarkable difference from how his own shields worked. Subtlety required time and patience, though. But if done right, it would leave no trace behind, no eerie sensation that would raise suspicions, no evidence of the presence of anyone's mind in his.

Schuldig unconsciously smiled when he finally got under the first shield. He recognized the segments, he had been there two nights ago. It wouldn't be so difficult to retrace the location and search again, this time in earnest, until he found it, until he uncovered it.

And then everything would be fine again.

27.

Rosenkreuz, in Crawford's opinion, was a very instructive institution. First, it taught you to trust your instincts. Then, it taught you not to trust your instincts. Next, it tried to teach you to trust your superior officers. Finally, it taught you not to trust anyone, so you ended up trusting your instincts again. If you failed to learn such a simple lesson you wouldn't last a year outside its walls.

Crawford had survived nine.

So he resisted the impulse to space out and tap with his fingers on the table, trying to sort out what the fuck was going on, and kept on calmly taking notes --gibberish-- on the sides of a report while he pondered which course of action he should take now.

"Done."

"...Schuldig?"

"Shh... sleep on."

It was a recurrent scene. Precognitives didn't get disoriented by déjà-vu. They were trained to tell visions from facts. It had happened. In real life. Twice. Plus, the stunt of last night. He had only the vision to know what had happened, but it didn't require too much imagination to guess what a telepath could have been doing at his bedside in the middle of the night.

But the thing was that he had let it happen. Because, deep down, something told him it was for the best. Because his instincts compelled him to trust Schuldig.

And, if Rosenkreuz was a very instructive institution, it had never seen a more advantaged student than Brad Crawford.

26.

"What am I doing here?" Nagi asked.

It was a fair question. There were at least three good reasons why Schuldig had wanted to hold this conversation in his mental room. First, precognition wouldn't foresee thoughts. Any talk they had inside someone's mind was invisible to clairvoyants.

"What do you know about Crawford's trip to Switzerland?"

Second, telepaths trying to invade another person's mental room wouldn't project a tangible presence. It was some kind of synesthetic space that gave form to any kind of thought that took place inside it. It was virtually impossible to spy on what happened inside without giving oneself away.

"You know what I know about it, Schuldig. Get to the point."

Third, any psychic power that trifled with the physical world was useless there.

"The ultimate reason for Schwarz being in Tokyo is not to consolidate Eszett's political power in Japan, nor to manipulate minor organizations into sowing the chaos for us. We're here for the ritual. Eszett's ritual. It's the chance of a lifetime for them."

"It is the chance of a lifetime for me too, Schuldig. I told you to get to the point."

Schuldig stared at the boy for a short while. He wasn't looking forward to Nagi's reaction to his news. He decided against invoking chairs and kept on talking.

"I'm telling you this because you need to understand what it meant for Crawford to be summoned by the Elders only one month before the ritual. Eszett has invested everything into this. All those expeditions to Tibet, all the research, the Book of Transcendentalism, the demon, the kingdom, the..."

"Schuldig."

"Crawford couldn't just go to meet the Elders in their headquarters with the least wavering of loyalty, much less with a brain full of plans of betrayal. They would have taken him apart, this shit is too important for them, and the Elders haven't wielded the power of Eszett for more than 100 years by trusting blindly their subordinates. We knew they would search Crawford's mind, his soul if he had one, every and each of his hairs if that gave them the proof they were looking for that Schwarz would, indeed, make the ritual a reality and that Eszett's kingdom would be coming. I don't know how much you know about how shields work. They're different for everyone. Crawford's mind is not easy to search, but his shielding has certain weak points that a skilled telepath can exploit. The Elders had had more than a century to hone their gifts. Draw your own conclusions."

Now Nagi didn't look impatient, but fearful. He was obviously catching the whiff of dread that Schuldig knew he had been giving off in waves for the last four days.

"What am I doing here?" he asked again.

"The day before Crawford's departure we had a talk. He gave me access to his mind and I spent the whole fucking night locating and hiding everything related to our own plans for the ritual. Any treacherous thought towards the Elders, Eszett and even Rosenkreuz was carefully covered with an intricate shielding that made them look as if they weren't there. Not the thoughts, not the connections. Crawford was the poster boy for loyalty and concern for Eszett's best interests when I finished. As he had always been."

Nagi didn't ask where the "but" was, he could already sense it coming. He just glared at Schuldig as if it were the telepath's fault there was a Hell. Schuldig couldn't blame him. Maybe it was, after all, his fault.

"The very night Crawford came back I was to go to him and, taking advantage of his jet-lagged mind, eliminate the shields and leave Crawford as I had found him two days before. Only, when I located the points I took for reference, the thoughts weren't there. The shields weren't there. Nothing was there. No memories to restore, no trace of our plans, no proof of conversations ever taking place, no covering, no shielding, no... no nothing. Nothing. Not there. Nothing."

Finally, Schuldig let his voice die while Nagi's personification closed his eyes as the implications of everything Schuldig had explained sunk in.

With no warning, Nagi figure was shaken by a violent wind that spread towards Schuldig while the energy roared in their ears and the light underwent weird refractions.

Nagi's mind was manifesting the use of his power even if the telekinetic blast couldn't be real inside someone else's head.

With murderous intent, Nagi gave up the telekinesis and lunged towards Schuldig in the most traditional manner.

"Aaaaaah!!"

Schuldig ducked the attack with preternatural speed and caught Nagi in a forced embrace that trapped his arms. He then dragged him down and hushed until he started to feel Nagi's struggle lose strength.

"I know," Schuldig whispered, "I know. I know."

All of Schwarz wanted the ritual to fail, but none of them as powerfully as Nagi. The only reason he was outside a lab was that Crawford had requested his presence to ensure that Schwarz's all-important mission was a success. The Elders would support anything that lead to their precious kingdom coming, so they had approved the transference. Nagi was the most powerful psychic the world had ever seen. At least a dozen of Eszett's I+D projects revolved around him. When this mission ended, he would go back to his place in the lab. He was the Queen Bee, never to leave his rooms. Only good for giving eggs to the hive. Not allowed to die, not allowed to live.

Little by little, the sparrow in Schuldig's hands stopped fighting.

"What am I doing here," he asked for the third time.

Schuldig's eyes fixed in the endless galaxy in front of him as he searched for the correct words.

"I don't understand Crawford. We're... we're too different. Our powers, our personalities, our minds..." Schuldig exhaled, "I don't know what to do. I don't know what went wrong. I don't know how to fix it."

Nagi's tension shifted. Schuldig still didn't let go, nor did he look at him. He knew the kid was listening and that was enough.

"I don't understand Crawford," he repeated, "but you do."

Nagi didn't look at him, either. He rarely went out of his way to establish eye contact and their current position didn't allow it comfortably.

"You don't need to restore the old memories," Nagi said slowly, "you can just put a duplicate there. The end result will be the same."

The galaxy wasn't moving. He should have devised some animated design or something.

"Memories are generated in a non-linear way," Schuldig explained, eyes still on the stars decorating the no-walls, "the access routes for every memory are multiple and depend on a certain amount of links called 'associations'. A true memory binds a lot of elements --visual, olfactory, sentimental-- that lead to other memories or trigger a certain thought. When you implant an artificial memory you have to design and create all those associations. If you fuck up, it's quite easy for the subject to find an inconsistency. In a normal people, it means weirding out a bit. In a psychic living with a telepath, it means being reported to Eszett. There's a reason why the usual procedure is wiping memories instead of creating false ones. It's difficult and entails a great many risks. Risks we're in no position to assume right now."

The frail personification in his arms started to tense again. Schuldig let him go, knowing that it was more due to their unnatural embrace than the impossibility of recreating the lost data. Schuldig hadn't been lying when he had said that Nagi and Crawford were alike. More than they realized.

"Give me some time to think about it," the kid said, "I'll... I'll gather information about telepathy, memory loss and recovery systems."

"Okay," Schuldig agreed, not sure if Nagi would catch the gesture if he just nodded.

"Try to--"

"I will."

Nagi nodded tensely and, a moment later, his figure disappeared. They still had time, Schuldig thought, not very far from desperate.

25.

Schuldig surprised himself again closing the door of Crawford's bedroom. Entering his mind would solve nothing as long as he didn't gain a deeper understanding of Crawford's unfamiliar network. But here he was anyway.

Schuldig sighed, let go of the knob and turned to the figure on the bed. The room was dark. Not only because of the poor night light that entered through the windows, reflections of a city that never slept, but because the furniture and decoration were disturbingly black. Schuldig found it oppressing. He didn't know how Crawford found it.

He walked towards the bed. It was barely two steps away from the door. Crawford's office was big. His bedroom wasn't.

Crawford slept in dark silk pajamas. The classic cut, with buttons down the front. Schuldig knew he did it because it was what was expected of him. Crawford had constructed himself through the years to make people believe it had been them constructing him. Sometimes, Schuldig asked himself how Crawford would have turned out if he had allowed himself to be. How that part of him nobody had been able to touch truly was.

As Schuldig had observed, Crawford usually slept on his back. He wondered if that, too, was a conscious decision, a part of his construction.

If anything, the insufficient lighting only made Crawford's face more perfect. Black and white. Like a Taijitu. Schuldig stood there, just watching it. He didn't know for how long.

"Not going in tonight?"

Schuldig startled and bit back a curse. It was stupid of him not to have checked Crawford's brain activity. It was stupid to have come here. It was stupid to jump at his voice.

"No," he simply answered.

Crawford opened his eyes and looked at him. For a short-sighted man, he rarely squinted even when he wasn't wearing his glasses. Maybe it had something to do with precognition. Maybe he wasn't looking at the current Schuldig, but at the one he would be in two seconds. Maybe he wasn't short-sighted at all. Trying to guess anything Crawford-related always gave him a headache. And that was the only thing he did nowadays, seemingly.

Neither of them said anything for what felt like ages. Finally, Schuldig broke the stare down contest and went back to his room.

24.

This time it was Nagi who had invoked a table and two chairs. His mental notes, which acquired the shape of sheets of paper, were meticulously spread on the surface of the desk in little piles kept at regular distance from one another. It never ceased to amuse Schuldig how the kid's OCD tendencies effortlessly overruled the chaos that puberty should have wrought on someone of Nagi's age.

"What have you got?" he asked, taking a seat in front of the kid.

Nagi leaned forward keeping his back straight and put his forearms on the table, letting the fingertips of both hands touch their counterparts.

It was not the time to mock his teammate, so Schuldig repressed a wicked smile.

"I have been thinking," Nagi's voice was low and pensive, "my first idea was--"

"That the Elders had busted us. Had busted me," Schuldig interrupted.

"Yes, that's right. I thought that maybe they had discovered the ruse and erased the treason from Crawford's mind so that he kept working on the ritual for them, but then I discarded it as ridiculous. Why would they tamper with Crawford's memory but leave ours intact? If the Elders knew of our plans and your shielding I'd be in a secret lab in Switzerland, you and Crawford would be in Austria until they determined if it was more convenient to brainwash you or eliminate you, and Farfarello would be dead. Of all of Schwarz, only I am irreplaceable. You said it yourself, the ritual is too important for Eszett, they wouldn't take such a high, unnecessary risk. It's obvious that the Elders don't know about this... incident."

Nagi cast a look at his notes.

"There is very little reliable literature about telepathy and mind tampering. Most of the texts about it are fiction or directly fraudulent material. That forced me to get into Rosenkreuz's information system to try and research more accurate sources, but it's not much that they keep in electronic format, they're not in a hurry to digitize their library, and hacking into their archives is a terribly slow process which requires a lot of time, most of it invested in hiding my true location so that their security programs don't track my signal back to Schwarz. The search on the medical histories and the reports of failed missions involving telepathic mistakes was bit more fruitful, if only because the databases are very neatly organized, even if the amount of info available isn't exactly overwhelming."

Not that they needed to breathe in there, but Nagi paused anyway. Schuldig was impressed. Not as much for the amount of intel Nagi was able to gather in 48 hours as for the long speech. Nagi had talked to him more in these ten minutes than in the two years they had been working together.

"Of all the cases I could contrast and the essays I could find on the subject, one can extract a very important conclusion: if a memory has been erased, it can't be restored."

Nagi hesitated and his eyes shifted to one of his notes on the right. Schuldig had a bad feeling.

"Also, there are several cases of both unintentional and purposeful wiping of memory conducted by telepaths -some of them experienced ones with a very high score in the Harald-Kreuzberg test- which actually supports the theory of an accident occurring during the shielding that--"

"I don't make mistakes," Schuldig cut him off.

"I also found a very interesting record about a case occurring about fourteen years ago of a boy who completely wiped out his own--"

All the sheets were sent flying in every possible direction without them being touched or the slightest trace of wind blowing. Nagi fell silent.

"I don't make mistakes," Schuldig repeated slowly, full of purpose.

Nagi just gazed at him with his big eyes very open. His expression was unreadable. He seemed to reach a conclusion, because his body language relaxed and he leaned back on his chair.

"I couldn't find anything so specific as invisible shielding changing location or how to find misplaced information and relocate missing markers. So I'm going to assume the information has been erased and therefore lost. That leaves only one course of action:" Nagi introduced a dramatic pause. Schuldig thought he was seeing a mini-Crawford in action. "To induce Crawford to re-think and re-plan in less than a month what he had spent his whole life plotting."

Schuldig didn't like this giving up --it had to be there, dammit-- it was like admitting it had been his fault, that he had been careless and he had fucked up beyond salvation. But he knew that Nagi's practical approach was right. It was the reason why he had gone to him in the first place, because Nagi was cood headed and able to let go when Schuldig himself wasn't. Because Nagi was like Crawford. And Crawford was precisely what he needed but didn't have. So Nagi would do.

"How are we going to achieve that?" Schuldig asked rubbing his eyes as if they were tired, as if he were really using them now. "Crawford is a clever son of a bitch, he'll see through us. And the moment he does, he'll turn us in."

They were so fucked... Schuldig truly couldn't see a way out of this. And they had been so near, so near... Schuldig got up and started pacing. Nagi didn't move.

"You mentioned associations," Nagi said. "If the texts I've read are right, there are several kinds of data stored in the mind, all of them linked to other units of data by these associations. The units we've lost are memories and thoughts, maybe a couple of feelings... but misplacing a couple of ideas can't have altered Crawford's personality so drastically, and I don't think all the associations can be lost when so many of them are multiple and link so many different units together. It's just that some associations are abstract enough to be undetectable to an outsider's mind, but that doesn't mean they aren't there."

"Where are you getting at?" Schuldig asked in a monotone without stopping his pacing.

"What I'm saying is that erasing these explicit thoughts of betrayal from Crawford's mind doesn't make him loyal to Eszett. Deep inside, Crawford's hate towards Eszett and Rosenkreuz must be latent somewhere. He still wants to break free. He's still him."

Schuldig paused and looked at him. There was a glint of hope in Nagi's eyes. Schuldig knew hope to be infectious and wasn't sure he wanted to catch such a dangerous disease. The last evil in Pandora's Box. The worst curse the Gods bestowed on the mortals. Sometimes Schuldig thought the Greeks hadn't been so stupid, after all. He let himself be infected anyway. It was better than the alternative.

"We must trigger an already known response. We just have to find the right buttons to push," Schuldig murmured.

"What does Crawford have the most faith in, Schuldig?"

This was a rhetorical question. Or, at least, it had an obvious answer.

"In himself." Slowly, it started to dawn on Schuldig what Nagi was trying to say. If he couldn't go and implant new memories making Crawford think it was all his idea --ah, the irony... funny enough, it was truly his idea-- there was only one thing Nagi would expect of him as a telepath. Schuldig hesitated. Maybe to give himself a bit more time he walked to the chair and sat down again. "There are many risks in your plan. The future, as Crawford never tires of repeating, is not set in stone. We could try and force a vision and bring forth just the wrong possibility. That 1% Crawford never talks about. Us being slaves forever. You being locked away in a clinical white room. Me being a nutcase. All of us being discovered and executed. Eszett's kingdom coming and their demon ruling the Earth. Another future we can't even imagine."

"You'll have to trust Crawford's ability to interpret the probabilities correctly and find the right way again."

They fell silent for a while, both trying to weigh pros and cons.

"I should have free entrance to Crawford's mind to try and find the part where the visions spring from in order to stimulate its center," Schuldig finally said. "He already knows I've been reading him. I'm not sure what he thinks of it."

"What about manipulating a vision?" Nagi asked, frowning in concentration.

Schuldig snorted.

"You're not listening, kid--"

"Not a posteriori, like creating a false memory, but in real time, so that all the associations are built naturally and the new idea is indistinguishable from the old ones, without any traces of tampering,"

Surprisingly enough, Schuldig burst out laughing. Nagi always forgot that the rest of them weren't almighty. That was a dead giveaway of how powerful the telekinetic really was. Schuldig wondered what kind of leverage Eszett and Rosenkreuz had on him, outside of sheer outnumbering. Sometimes Schuldig had the impression that Nagi could bring them all down on his own. Maybe Eszett had some kryptonite in the cellar. Someday he would dig into Nagi's head to search for the truth. Someday, when time wasn't biting his ass.

"Keep it real, kid," he said aloud, "that's some work you're suggesting. I'd need a month just to research what I would be supposed to be recreating. I can't tamper with a gift I know nothing about. We don't have that kind of time. I don't have that kind of access. I've just told you that Crawford knows I'm up to something, he won't let his guard down for me. Much less now, when he's forgotten he has a reason to."

"You might have erased the reason," Nagi stated very seriously, "but not the trust he has in you."

Schuldig snorted again.

"He didn't have any trust in me to begin with."

"He must have, if he let you in in the first place."

"Yes. No. It's complicated."

How could he explain to Nagi? Did Nagi really want to understand? Not even Schuldig was sure what kind of link bound him to Crawford. That bound Crawford to him. Schuldig had no idea if trust played any role in it.

Schuldig rubbed his eyes again. It brought the same relief as before: none.

"So, are we getting anywhere with this?"

Nagi's expression was slightly disapproving.

"I thought that's what we were trying."

"Sorry kid, I'm just..." he didn't finish the sentence. He suspected Nagi knew anyway. "I think that your idea of trying to get Crawford to have a vision might be our best shot. I'll work on it. I'll need some time to investigate and get familiar with Crawford's gift." The truth was, he didn't have the slightest idea how he was going to achieve it without raising Crawford's suspicions, or what he was going to say to him if he finally confronted Schuldig about his meddling. But he would think of something. Hopefully fast.

"And I'll research again, this time precognition. Anything that helps us trigger the vision we need." Nagi's tone suggested he was already considering this conversation over. He couldn't have been sleeping much lately with school, Schwarz, and now this extra load on his timetable. He looked tired, but Nagi wasn't prone to complaining. "Let's meet again in two days' time."

23.

He couldn't let go. He wished he could spot humidity stains or cracks in the paint, defects on the plaster, anything that made his ceiling a bit more interesting to stare at. He just couldn't let go.

And he had tried, really, he had. He had been thinking of Nagi's plan and the best possible approach. He had even considered the possibility of openly asking Crawford to scan the future. But he was afraid such a direct action could influence negatively on the things to pass. Crawford knew him, he would never expect outright sincerity from Schuldig because his truths were never exempt from lies, and thus, he would suspect an attempt at manipulation which would unbalance the teamwork and lead Crawford to mistrust him. Less inclined to share his thoughts of treason with him, condemning his plans to non-existence. A vision in that circumstance could show the wrong future and the damned situation would feed itself endlessly.

No, if he were going to manage this, it had to be underhandedly, if only because that was what Crawford would expect of him, which would raise the least suspicions in him. What would feel familiar, safe. And therefore, what would generate the right vision.

All the irony was killing him.

He turned his head to look at his alarm clock. 1:05 am. His eyes went back to the ceiling.

What if Nagi was right? What if that past incident hadn't been intentional, but an accident? Nobody knew the truth. Nobody but Schuldig. And he had forgotten.

"My name's Schuldig", it was the only thing he would say. The first memory he had.

"That's not truly a name," the man had said.

"My name's Schuldig."

He hadn't really liked the man. He never liked anyone at Rosenkreuz, not even Crawford when he had met him. That came later, his liking Crawford, but Schuldig didn't really want to think about it now.

"My name's Schuldig."

"Do you know where you are?"

"My name's Schuldig."

"Do you know where you are, Schuldig?"

He remembered the mocking tone. He had decided to follow along anyway.

"No. But I know that my name's Schuldig."

"Nice to meet you, Schuldig." Yes, it was obvious that the man was laughing at him. "Mine's Lübeck."

Schuldig knew he hadn't answered to that. He hadn't been pleased to meet him and, back then, he had yet to understand the finer points of lying and its importance to survive in a place like that. He hadn't even known which place 'that' was, as Lübeck had just realized.

"I'm the Head of the Telepathy Department," he had said with a stilted smile, "welcome to Rosenkreuz."

Schuldig could almost laugh at that.

They had carried out endless tests on him. His case was fascinating, they said. A telepath, no more than a child, who had wiped his own memory, supposedly out of remorse, since the only conscious thought remaining was that he was to be called 'schuldig'. A rather unique occurrence. Only later would he understand they didn't mean the name, but the fact that all his abilities and skills were intact, only the references to his past were gone. Not blocked, like in traumatic amnesiacs, but totally deleted from his brain. Only one name left behind: guilty. Nobody knew of what. He had tried asking about what Rosenkreuz knew of him. It wasn't much, he had only been there a couple of weeks before 'the incident' took place. He supposed that, if he had wanted to forget it all that badly, he would be better off not knowing, so he didn't insist.

Now, fourteen years later, he wondered if he should ask Nagi to let him see his own record.

Nobody knew the truth but Schuldig. And he had forgotten.

He just wished that Alexander Lübeck had been right and, back then, he had succeeded in his efforts to wipe clean his own memory, and not that he had failed at placing invisible shields on it.

22.

Schuldig ordered another coffee. He had chosen the place and the hour carefully. Schwarz's current case was mostly Crawford's job, which was a blessing, because time was precisely what they didn't have.

The 'Sakura' was a big café which took two stores of a building in the center of Shibuya. The terribly original name was indicative enough of the kind of clients it targeted. He wouldn't stand out too much here amongst all the western tourists. Schuldig leaned back in his seat, --red and white like all the furniture here-- and waited for the waitress in her ridiculous uniform to come back.

He had spent at least two hours working on her mind and messing with her memories. She had a sharp mind and an obsequious attitude which Schuldig considered made her a good waitress. A pity, all the scolding she would get today. But Schuldig just needed to know. So, he observed how she came back without table number three's order once again. The middle-aged couple there were starting to get seriously angry. They were French. It wouldn't be long till they tried to file a complaint. They had ordered for the first time more than half an hour ago. Again, after ten minutes. And again ten minutes after that. The waitress brought him the coffee with a smile. Maybe they would fire her today. Maybe that wasn't such a bad thing; the uniform was truly hideous.

Schuldig got into her mind once again. This time he hadn't just covered the order from table number three like he had with the order from table number eight, but completely erased it. Of course, it wasn't there. Nagi was right: once deleted, a memory couldn't be restored. But his previous experiments of blocking and shielding had been completely reversible. First leaving markers, then using some significant parts of her own mind as markers. That second technique didn't leave a trace. That was what he had done with Crawford. He had had no trouble relocating and uncovering the memories in the waitress' mind.

"Thank you, honey," Schuldig said in English, because that was what the girl --Ayumi-- expected.

She smiled at him. Schuldig smiled at her thoughts. Not every Japanese found him attractive. Barely anyone, no matter the nationality, found him nice. Ayumi wouldn't, either, if she knew what he had been doing to her all morning.

He decided to test another waitress and look for significant differences in the results with the same methods. He considered asking if they had an aspirin. This was going to be a long day.

21.

As expected, Nagi's research on precognition was thorough but ultimately useless from a telepath's perspective. No book gave directions such as: when you get to the childhood memories, turn to the right and keep on walking for three blocks, then turn to the left and continue straight. The core of clairvoyance is at the end of the alley, fifth door to the right.

Schuldig let him ramble on, though. Crawford had always insisted on it: every piece of information was worth knowing. It had taken years for Schuldig to learn that, horrible taste in suits or not, Crawford was mostly right about things.

That would give him more time to decide how he wanted to introduce his findings to Nagi.

The scenario was the same as two days ago. Table, chairs, notes, galaxies. And Nagi's mental voice creating no echo at all. Schuldig would have felt offended otherwise... it would imply he was an airhead.

"Schuldig?" Nagi's tone was kind of expectant. Schuldig hadn't been aware he could space out in his own mind.

"Yeah, well... last night I entered Crawford's mind from my room."

"I thought telepathy depended heavily on distance."

"It does," Schuldig agreed, "but I judged discretion was preferred to efficiency this time. I told you about Crawford knowing I've been up to something. I can slip into his mind undetected by both his physical and psychical senses, but not if I sit at his bedside to do it."

Nagi nodded encouragingly. Schuldig wasn't feeling too encouraged at the moment, though.

"I'm getting more familiar with how his mind is ordered," he explained without much conviction, "and I think I'm learning to move faster in there..."

Nagi looked moderately crestfallen.

"But you didn't find his gift."

"You didn't, either."

"I've just explained to you about a dozen methods to boost and stimulate a seer's visions!"

"But not by a telepath. I don't mind trying to spike his coffee, though, I've always wanted to see Crawford high..."

"Schuldig!"

The telepath violently slammed his hand on the table. A deep silence followed. Nagi looked at him again with his big eyes wide open. Schuldig knew Nagi rarely saw him so serious and full of repressed violence. And it was for a reason.

"Listen, kid, I'm not you and I'm not Crawford. And thank your God that I'm not Farfarello, either. Everyone has their way to deal with pressure. This is mine. It doesn't mean I've slept more than you this last week, or that I've investigated less, and above all, that I haven't replayed in my mind once and again what the fuck happened that night, what could have gone wrong or how the hell I could have not noticed."

Nagi wasn't looking at him with empathy but with cold hatred.

"Look, I..." Schuldig tried really hard to find the words because he understood, really, he did. And he was usually quite the smooth talker. Lately everything was going to shit, all he had tried so hard to build, to achieve, to be... It was like being back to the time he didn't know anything and everyone had the right to order him around. To mold him. To use him. Then he had gotten a taste of how it was to hold the reins to his own destiny and now 'this' had blown it all away, like a house of cards. He hated feeling so useless. "I know that you blame me, and I know what you're risking here. But I've been conducting tests the whole day and sneaking into Crawford's mind the whole night, and I've got a new theory that--"

"Fuck him." Nagi interrupted him.

Schuldig blinked. He couldn't have misheard. Not here, where words weren't truly said and listened to.

"What?"

Because he couldn't decide which meaning would be more hilarious, if Nagi wanting them to follow Crawford's plans without Crawford knowing, Nagi wanting him to make Crawford's life impossible or if Nagi was truly suggesting what he thought he was suggesting.

"Fuck him," the kid repeated mercilessly. "I've read about it. Telepathy is not only directly proportional to distance. It's also exponentially boosted by contact; that combined with the lowering of defenses that sexual activity carries, makes seduction a standard practice for telepaths during intel missions."

Schuldig sighed and shook his head.

"Look--"

"No, you look. We have three weeks to fix this mess. Three weeks. Twenty one days to give Crawford back his memories, which we can't, or to make him think them anew, which we will. I've read his file, I know of his sexual orientation. I've also read yours. So suck it up and start waving your ass because I need you to get to Crawford's core before this huge, gigantic, humongous shit hits the fan!"

The shock of hearing Nagi use that kind of language was enough to render Schuldig speechless.

"You..." Nagi said after a short silence, when he thought he had calmed enough to trust his voice again, "you came to me because you wanted to know what Crawford would do. Well, this is it."

Schuldig resorted to his favorite nervous gesture and rubbed his eyes.

"There's... I don't think your plan is going to... Crawford won't fall for it." Smooth talker, indeed. Schuldig felt like laughing.

Nagi glared at him as if he was trying to fry him with the laser beams coming from his eyes.

"We slept together." Schuldig finally explained. "Once. We decided it was better to leave it at that."

"Why?"

"It wasn't the right time to play."

From the tone he used, it was easy to deduce they had been Crawford's words, not Schuldig's.

"Play?"

Schuldig couldn't help noticing how Nagi's monotonous intonation made it more like a comment and less like a question. Just like Crawford.

"Sex is a power game. There can't be two winners. It complicates everything. It just wasn't worth it."

"For you or for him?"

"For both," Schuldig narrowed his eyes. He didn't like what Nagi was implying. "You'll understand some day."

Nagi didn't look bothered by Schuldig calling him a kid. He just seemed more decided than ever.

"Maybe the time to play has come."

"Nagi..."

"Think of what's at stake. Tell me it's not worth it now."

Continue to part II