[disclaimers in part 1]
______

"Back there, are they not good souls who wish me well?"

~~Rimbaud -- A Season in Hell~~
______

MONDAY, MARCH 6, 2000
GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER
12:03 AM

FROHIKE:

We're finally called up to Byers' room, and the poor boy looks like hell. This is what I get when I tell the guy to get out of the house for a while. The doc said he'd be fine and that we could probably take him home tomorrow night or Tuesday morning, as long as there are no complications. "Kept me... awake... surgery," he says, all quiet. I guess they only keep you under long enough to get the surgery started. I shudder. I think everyone in the room does. That's gotta be a really disturbing thing, to have them cutting up your eye and be aware that they're doing it.

Sari's sitting in a chair next to him, holding his hand, and he seems really relieved to see her upright and conscious. "Sari... all right?" he asks her softly. He's so exhausted and drugged up he can barely talk right now. She's on the verge of tears, but hanging on like a champ.

"I'm fine, John. I'm so sorry this happened. I was so worried about you. You should never have tried to stop Barry. You must have known he could hurt you. Why did you do that?"

Langly laughs. "He thinks he's Galahad."

"Didn't... want him... hurt you." He takes a shaky breath and says, "He'll... kill you if he... you're not... going back to your
place..." He slowly brings her hand up to his cheek and holds it there for a minute before his grip loosens. She runs her thumb slowly along his cheekbone. It's pretty obvious that the post-surgery Demerol is starting to kick his ass.

"Nope," Langly says. "We're taking her back to the office tonight. She'll be fine. No way we're gonna make her go back to her place right now."

"Yeah," Mulder says. "Your idiot buddies are making me go over there to feed the cat and the lizards. I'll have you know, I could have been at the Candy Apple right now."

Byers manages a weak smile. "Glad I... could help," he says to Mulder. "Might... make up for... suit..." He's fading real fast.

"I'm staying here with you tonight," Sari says to him. She looks like she's about to pass out too.

"Sorry dear," I tell her, "but you're going with Langly tonight. You need to rest, not spend the night in a miserable hospital chair hovering over Byers. That's my job." She starts to protest, but everyone, including Byers, insists that she go and get some rest. I toss the miscreants out, and settle down for a long, painful night.

"She... be... all right?" Byers asks. He's struggling to stay with me.

"Sari's one tough little chickadee, buddy. She'll be fine. It's you we're all worried about right now. Just rest, okay? You really need it." I brush the hair back from his forehead, and he sighs. He relaxes a little and it isn't long before he's asleep.

LONE GUNMEN HQ
12:55 AM

SARI:

I'm so worried about John. His friends are very insistent that this isn't my fault, but I can't help feeling guilty over it. I know what to expect from Barry, how violent he can be, but poor John had no idea what would happen when he stepped between us. I wanted to stop him, but it all happened too fast. I know that my bastard ex is serious about killing John if he sees him again. At least for the moment though, John is safe, and I'm content with what little peace that gives me. I have no idea how I can repay him for what he's tried to do, and how he's suffering for it. I'm not sure it's even possible.

John Byers seems to have very close, very loyal friends in these three men. I'm not surprised. He's a very kind and caring man himself, and it seems natural to me that he would attract people like that. I'll admit that Ringo and Frohike seem a little odd, but it's obvious they love him very much, and they're determined to take care of him. Even his friend Mulder, the FBI agent, was serious and anxious underneath all the jokes. I've seen men who were good friends to each other now and then, but after so long with Barry, I'd forgotten how gentle and concerned they can be when they aren't playing testosterone games. Remembering this, and seeing them being that way toward John, comforts me as well.

My life is surrounded by testosterone games. I'm immersed in it every day at work, and I have to play too, if I want to be good at my job. It isn't my preferred mode of operation, but that's why I write poetry. It's an escape for me, a world where I can create, where I can be powerful and in control of my life. There, I can show parts of myself that I wouldn't dare expose to the light of day elsewhere. John, I will admit, appeals very much to the poet in me. When Ringo said that John thinks he's Galahad, it rang true. Not necessarily that John believes that, but just that there's something about him that would be welcome at the Round Table. Galahad was supposed to be pure of heart and have the strength of ten. While that's not true in terms of physical strength, I do believe John has enough heart for ten.

The neighborhood we're in, in Southeast DC, is scruffy at best. Ringo parks the van near a ramshackle looking loft building, and leads me up a dark alley. After a good bit of wrangling with security encoding, I'm led into what must be the biggest electronics mess I've ever seen in my life. What on earth have I gotten myself into now? There are things humming everywhere -- monitors, computers, video equipment, spectroscopes, and a thousand other things I'm not sure I recognize. The room smells just a little like gym socks, but I suppose one should expect that in a place where three bachelor programmers live. They actually live here?

"Like, can I get you some coffee or something?" Ringo offers. I could really use some, actually, but I have to admit that I'm afraid of what might be living in their kitchen.

"Um... sure, but only if you make sure the stuff you're making it in, and the cup you're giving me have been washed sometime in the last, oh, five minutes." I don't want to be rude, but only the demon gods and hungry ghosts are likely to know what's in this place.

"Sure," he says, and heads for the kitchen. "Make yourself at home." Right. The place is a little cooler than I like, but then, it's full of equipment that needs cool air to function. I sit myself down gingerly on a red velvet couch that looks like it was probably salvaged from one of the local whorehouses. I could understand this from looking at Ringo and Frohike, but I just can't imagine John living like this. He seems too... civilized. But then, from the sounds of it, he's been living with these two for years now, and none of them have probably had much feminine influence during that time. I get up again and start picking up empty cans and bottles, just out of nervous habit.

"Hey, what are you doin'?" Ringo asks me, as he returns to the room.

I look at the jumble of empties I've accumulated in a plastic grocery bag. "I... sorry, I couldn't help but try to help make things a little... neater." That was totally inadequate, but I guess it will do.

"Yeah, Byers usually does that stuff, but like, he hasn't been feeling real well for a while." He looks sad, and I realize that he
must be the one who was nearly killed in the incident that John and Frohike mentioned to me. "Lemme take that, ok?"

I hand him the bag of empties. "Do you guys really live here?" I ask cautiously.

"Yeah, we do. Don't worry, Byers' room is a lot neater than this." He leads me out of the office and down a hallway, then opens a door. As he said, this room appears to be quite neat and clean compared to the rest of the place. It doesn't smell like gym socks, or dirty clothes, or anything else that might be hazardous to my health. That's an immense relief. So this is where John lives. No wonder he looked so pleased when he came to my place this morning. I put down my backpack and coat on a chair, and Ringo puts John's laptop on the desk. Then we go back into the office area, where the smell of coffee is starting to overcome the eau de gym sock, and I start to feel a little more at ease. "Mulder should be here pretty soon with your clothes and your computer and stuff," Ringo says. He and Frohike are going to finish the work John started today. They're being incredibly kind to me.

"I hope he doesn't terrify the Cardinal." Richelieu may be a big Manx kitty, but he's a scaredy snipped boy cat, and he really doesn't care much for strangers. We talk a little about not much, both trying to distract ourselves from wondering about how John is doing, and I look around the place. There are a lot of tabloids lying around titled 'The Lone Gunman,' with some very strange headlines. Some of them look like they could be straight out of Shea and Wilson's 'Illuminatus!' trilogy, or some of the weirder paranoid conspiracy web pages, but one strikes my eye.

'PINCK CONDUCTS COVERT GENETIC EXPERIMENTS. EVIDENCE LINKS TO BIRTH
DEFECTS.' This is odd. I read the article, and it's got information in it that looks suspiciously like the information I have in a couple of the files that I'd acquired for the white paper I'm working on. It's precise and well written, with a minimum of speculation. Not quite what I'd expected from a publication whose other issues featured headlines about things like Monica Lewinski Mandroids, or alien cloning experiments. I need to know where they found these things.

"Ringo, where do you guys get this tabloid?"

"Oh, we publish it. We're journalists," he says, looking quite proud of himself. "That's the February issue." Journalists. Uh huh. And computer software and security consultants. Who have access to highly classified documents.

"Could you tell me where you found the information for this article, then?" I show him the Pinck Pharmaceuticals headline.

"Oh, that's one of Byers' articles," he replies, looking a little nervous. "We found that stuff online."

I look at him carefully. I can add. "You guys are really hackers, aren't you?" It would certainly explain John's hesitation when I asked him about what kind of work he did on Saturday.

He hems and haws, trying to avoid answering, but finally says "um... well... yeah. We are." He looks a little embarrassed, as if he's about five and he's been caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

I smile. "It's always good to have unidentified sources available." He grins a happy, lopsided grin. I think I've been accepted. Actually, Ringo reminds me a little of my kid brother Kris. I want to know more, but since this article was John's work, I'll need to wait until I can talk to him to find out if he knows anything I don't about this project. Right now, I'm exhausted, and I took the other half of the Vicodin with my coffee a little while ago, so I'm about to pass out. "I really need to get some rest, Ringo. Wake me if you hear anything, please?"

"No problem," he says. "You want me to wake you when Mulder gets here?"

"No, just go ahead and put my things in John's room so I can find them when I wake up." We get up and he walks me back to the room. He gives me a little hug.

"You get some rest, babe. You're safe here with us. I promise. Ain't nothing getting through our security system. We rule." I squeeze him back with my good arm. It really does feel safe here, despite the oddness of the surroundings. He leaves me to my own devices and shuts the door behind him as he leaves.

I light a tiny sandalwood incense stick that will only burn for about ten minutes, and make a couple of calls from John's phone. They're local, so I'm sure no one will mind. I leave a message on my boss's voice mail, saying that I won't be in tomorrow or Tuesday because of my ex, but I'll make the Senate subcommittee meeting on Thursday, and also ask for someone who can take dictation for me while my arm is mending. The second call is to my sister's answering machine, to tell her what happened, assure her I'm somewhere safe, and warn her to watch out for Barry. He's made threats against Devi and some of my friends before, and I want her to know he's out again. Then I get undressed and crawl into John's bed. I set my bent and taped up glasses on his bedside table and turn off the light. This all just feels really weird. I find myself wishing I were at my own place, with the Cardinal on my feet and the scent of all my plants around me. But his bed is comfortable and warms up quickly. John's pillow smells like he did when I hugged him earlier today -- a lifetime ago -- clean and male, comforting. I thought I would be nervous here, in a strange place, with men I barely know around me, but instead I feel
protected and cared for. I snuggle up with the pillow and let the tears come quietly, reciting a Hanuman mantra for healing until I drift into sleep.

LANGLY:

It sure didn't take Sari long to figure out what we're about. I never even said a word. She's pretty sharp, I'll give her that. And she's cool about it, too, which is extra points as far as I'm concerned. Mulder shows up about twenty minutes after Sari goes off to bed. He's got her stuff and her computer, and he's got a cat carrier. I wonder why he brought the cat? Then again, it might just make her feel better to have her furry bud with her. He's a big ginger Manx, real handsome cat. I bet it will make her feel better. Mulder puts her computer down on one of our work benches, and I take her stuff and her cat in to her. She's out cold, all curled up around Byers' pillow, but I'm not surprised. She was barely hanging on by the time I got her here. Just before I close the bedroom door, I open the door of the cat carrier. Maybe he'll come out and sleep with her tonight.

"Hey, Mulder, how did you get the cat in the box?" She said the cat didn't like strangers much, and I can't really see Mulder being much of a cat person.

"It wasn't any trouble," he says. "He came out when I got there, wanting to be fed, and so I put the food and some cat litter in
there, and in he went. I got all the stuff on her list. The cat's not the only thing that came out when I got there, though."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, I saw her ex. He was hanging out down the block, like she suspected. I pursued him, but he was too far away for me to catch. I called the local PD and told them I'd seen him. They're looking for him. I told them he was wanted for questioning in a federal case in addition to the assaults, and his parole and restraining order violations, and to hold him and contact me immediately if they found him. Huge fucking bastard. I'm not surprised Byers looks like hamburger. Guy looks like it would take a LAW rocket to knock him down."

Man, Byers is either the stupidest guy on the face of the planet or the bravest. But, like, I'm not sure if there's a difference. God, I hope he'll be okay.

end part 9