"Alright. Two visits, before and after classes, one hour each. But you can't miss your classes or your simulator practice for a visit. She'll be taken care of, don't worry. Now go back to your barracks and calm down. She'll won't be awake until tomorrow morning anyway."

The beep of his desk terminal called him away, and Jor turned to look at Wick as he approached and read the missive concerning Nathan's release.

He looked back at Jor. There was no way, in his professional opinion, that the boy could have done this. Someone had provided Nathan with an alibi, though. Where did that leave Jor?

"It was him. I'll be here in the morning to see her, if he fucking comes near her again, I swear... don't let him anywhere near here, or I will fucking kill him, I don't care what anyone says, he lays one finger on her and..." Jor shot on last glance at Wick. She'd done everything she could to protect him, had sacrified her life to keep him safe. He loved her. It was only fair he do the same.

"Is...is everything alright, sir? Where are you going?"

"To speak to the Major."

He approached slowly, casually, but they stopped him anyway. "No one gets in. Doctor's orders." Mode put on his most earnest, worried expression. "But what about my friend? Is she really badly hurt?" The MPs just watched him stonily, and finally the second spoke. "No one. Come back later and the doctor can speak to you."

The door to the infirmary opened then, and a military nurse in her early thirties appeared in the doorway, clipboard in hand. When she looked up and saw him she froze, and he read the quick flicker of fear in her eyes with a little surprise.

"Nurse? These guards won't let me in to see my friend. Do you think you could talk to them, please?"

Rachel stared. She'd read Callenstrom's file, Windhaven's file, and eventually located and read Terrence's file as well. It had taken some digging - Charybdis was tight with its records - but from what she'd read the boy was certainly physically capable of inflicting the injuries the girl had suffered. Mentally...who knew? Charybdis retreads were always iffy business, as far as she was concerned.

She'd just come from a little chat with Wick, and had some disturbing news for the doctor - but no matter what the girl said about being mistaken, there was no way she was letting this cold-eyed boy into her infirmary.

"Absolutely not," she said icily, and then turned to the guards. "No one. Not a soul but me or the doctor, is that clear?" They nodded stiffly, and she turned away and walked down the hall, charts in hand.

Mode glared at her back, and then shrugged at the guards with a "What can you do?" expression before moving away, features darkening. He was beginning to feel the first warning twinges of anger flickering at the edges of his awareness. It was time to duck out of site for a while until he got back under control.

Her bed was empty.

He stared. The girl had a broken ankle that had only had the regen unit on it for three hours. It would be another two days before she could possibly walk on it. Where could she have gone? He walked around her bed and found her next to it, on the floor. Had she fallen?If they had seemed clouded before, her eyes were crystal clear now. Her ankle appeared to be intact. At least she hadn't tried to walk on it. She was still incredibly pale, but whether this was from blood loss or her natural condition or a combination of both, he couldn't tell.

The girl was pulling at the gel packets that covered her left arm. The gel had solidified against her burned flesh and become opaque. She had made little progress, and he imagined any that she had made had come painfully at best. "Don't pull at those," he said gently, and picked her back up, put her in the bed. She allowed this, staring at him intently.

"You're the doctor?" Her voice was clear, unmuddled by any remaining drug effects. "That's right," he responded as he began reattaching her IVs. She didn't wince as he put them back in, just watched him work until he was through. "What's wrong with my arm?" she asked finally, bluntly. The doctor took a breath.

"Your arm has been very badly burned with an accelerant-" "I know that! I know it was Petrol 5, I know I was burned," she snapped viciously. "What I want to know is the level of damage. Third or fourth? I don't recognize these things." She indicated the gel paks. The girl was beginning to shake, but leaned away slightly when he reached out to touch her uninjured shoulder.

Gerard blinked. No, definitely not dazed.

"Fourth," he said finally. The girl wanted brutal facts, and he could provide them. "Those gel paks are relatively new. They were put on the market last year. They allow us to stabilize burn patients long enough for the skin grafts to be grown and prevent infection. If you know the particulars of Petrol 5, you know it burns very quickly. Your muscle tissue was largely undisturbed, but most of the skin was lost. We're nearly ready for the skin graft, but I'm afraid you will not regain the dermal feeling in the skin tissue. The nerves were too badly damaged. Your arm will remain functional, of course - the muscle nerves are intact - but you won't feel anything on the skin."

The girl blinked at him blankly, and he felt a little guilty for being so blunt...but she seemed to have some knowledge of burn medicine. Maybe it stemmed from the previous burn Jor had mentioned.

No feeling in her arm, ever again. Feeling in her hand, but not in her arm. When she'd woken up this time, she'd felt lucid, lucid enough to tell the nurse she'd been wrong about Mode, that she hadn't been thinking clearly. After the nurse left, she'd quietly conducted self-diagnostics. He hadn't done anything to her after the fire, she was fairly certain. Virgin arsons were often frightened of their work, or so she'd heard. Not that she'd ever understood it.

He'd been effective, considering his inexperience - very effective. Localized, non-lethal, non-crippling, incredibly painful with long-lasting effect. Very effective.

She marveled at her lack of internal shock...but only at first. She'd remained conscious long enough to see her skin turning black. Inside, she'd known what the doctor was going to tell her. Moving her arm had been unsuccessful, except for a very small bit, and the strange crinkling sound had made her immediately desist. No pain. It was the lack of pain that gave it away.

"That's not what you told me earlier. Do you remember any of that? I asked you the same question that I just asked you now, and you told me it was 'Mode.'" He watched her expression carefully, but it didn't alter. Her eyes flinched a bit, though. "Your friend who brought you in helped me to identify him, and they arrested him...but he was alibied, and he has been released. And now you're telling me that he was not the one who did this to you?"

The girl remained silent.

"Alright. That doesn't leave too many possibilities. Was it Jor?"

Her eyes narrowed in disbelieving fright. "NO, it wasn't Jor, you sick bastard!" she practically screamed at him, and then started shivering again. "He would NEVER, NEVER do anything like this, EVER." He ignored the girl's disrespect to a superior officer and just stared at her, then at the bruises on her neck. He knew Jor hadn't done it, but if her fear for him would get her to tell him who the real attacker was, he would be satisfied with that.

She blushed an incredibly delicate pink and pulled the gown more tightly around herself as he picked up the hard copy of her report and handed it to her. Her face remained stonily impassive until the last line made her eyes widen. "Oh, that wasn't...whoever attacked me didn't do anything like that, sir," she said at last, a little lamely.

"I would know, sir," she said stonily, but he looked unimpressed. Damn, why had he brought Jor into this? How did he know about Jor, anyway?

"You would know, eh?" the doctor continued inexorably. "I performed a routine pelvic exam as part of my investigation, and took all the standard cultures. If I run that through my DNA identifier, who is that going to implicate?"

Wick stared. Did this doctor really think Jor had done it? She thought of his eyes, the way they lit when she kissed him, how tightly he held her when they embraced. Her match would never do anything to hurt her. Not like this. How could anyone else think he would?

A sudden vision of Jor's face dark with rage when he saw Nicolai kiss her fluttered before her eyes. Wick looked at the doctor more carefully. "Who exactly brought me in?"

"A boy from Phoenix by the name of Nicolai Mishkin. Do you know him?"

Jor was not pleased when the MPs guarding the infirmary door refused to call the doctor.

"Just go see if he's there, please! My girlfriend is in the one who got hurt, I just want to see her, and he said that I could stop by! Look, I know he's back, can you just ask?"

They ignored him with studied disinterest, and he began to get angry, pacing back and forth until they started to give him menacing glances. After a few minutes, his face darkened with rage, and he raised his voice irrationally against the two armed MP's.

Jor...Jor was outside, he'd come to see her. Was he still angry? Her heart ran cold for a moment...but he didn't sound angry. "Let him in," she said to the doctor icily. When he didn't move, still watching her, she grew more forceful. "He didn't do it, and you know it! Let him in!" The doctor remained silent, and she turned towards the door, a frantic note creeping into her tone. "LET HIM IN!"

Jor sat back then, intertwined his fingers with hers, watching her face carefully, his green eyes shadowed forest. "I saw Mode; Wick, they let him out, that little red-head alibied him, didn't you tell the doctor what happened? He..." His jaw clenched angrily, but he managed to continue. "He was mocking me about what he did to you... we have to get him locked up again, he'll hurt you, Wick, listen to me please..."

"I have the test results from the cultures we were discussing," he said, his eyes hard on hers. She couldn't help wincing a little, and her fingers gripped Jor's arm a little harder, but she remained as stony as she could.

"You sure there's nothing you want to tell me before I take this to the Major? Either of you?" Wick watched Jor for a moment with pained eyes, and then looked back to the doctor. "It wasn't Jor. Sir." Her voice was clear and calm.

...Bianca? He'd been with Bianca? A little of her old fire began to flicker in her eyes, but she kept her face blank, and it died soon. She didn't really care. She'd forced him away. What had she expected him to do, pine until she came to fetch him again?

Still, it stung.

"Wick has retracted her testimony. She now denies that she knew the identity of her attacker, and that she must have been mistaken when she identified Terrence before." The doctor's voice was cold and unforgiving. "As a result, that leaves only the DNA test results I've pulled for the suspected sexual assault for me to take to the Major."

She couldn't have...

"Not Nathan?! Wick, are you crazy, it was him! I went to confront him, that kid from your quad was there, the big one, Nathan admitted it to us both!" Jor continued, voice roughening with a tinge of fear. She couldn't have said he'd done it, she knew he didn't, he could never hurt her. And sexual assault?

"You know he did it, Wick. I know he did it, he admitted it to me... and I don't know what you think you're doing." He hissed angrily, serpentine eyes narrowing dangerously. "Maybe it was your other boyfriend, that Nicolai..." Jor slid from the cot, now ignoring Wick as he glared defiantly at the doctor. "You told me that you believed me, that you knew I didn't do it..."

Suddenly she didn't care anymore, and her temper flared. "Damn you, Jordan, come back here! You know me better than that, match! Have I ever wanted to spend time with someone other than you? What the fuck would I want with some idiot flyboy? And when I tell you that I don't know who did this, it's the TRUTH, you selfish merdana, and if that's not enough for you, then you can get out!"

He whirled around as she finished screaming, green eyes absolutely blazing with fury as his face darkened, eyes narrowing as he began to shout. His voice was frozen with cold fire, husky as he spoke, and he advanced a few steps toward her, fists clenched at his sides. "Why should I stay?! Every time I try to prove to you how much I love you, I just get shoved away! I was trying to protect you from him, Spark, I would have died before I let him hurt you! But you shoved me away, and I couldn't do anything, and now look what happened; someone," he said the word snidely, "fucking lit you on fire, broke your arm, and now I'm getting blamed for sexual assault?! If that's all it meant to you, Moira, then I don't see why you even care if I stay or not!"

Jor turned to face the doctor then, still raging, and snarled. "And what the hell do you want?! Is that my DNA you identified?! Do you possibly think that I would rape my own girlfriend?! I know Nathan is the one who attacked her, you know it too, if both of you are going to fucking lie, I might as well too! Fine! I'm the one who did it! I beat her until she couldn't say no and raped her and then lit her on fire with some Petrol 3 or whatever the fuck it's called! Is that what you want, Wick?! Protecting Nathan and not me?! Is this some sort of payback because you don't like me being around Bianca?! Fuck you, both of you, I am going to leave!"

From his viewpoint, everything he said was correct. She'd pushed him away because she wanted him safe, but he had no way of knowing that. Now she was protecting Nathan to keep him safe, and he couldn't know that either. Not with the doctor here, so close, ready to take notes and condemn Jor to death.

But this time, if she let him leave...he would be gone. Truly gone, no retrieval operations, no recovery, gone. She tried to imagine what her life would be like without her match, and only got a dull, hollow void. The light in her eyes went out, and her fire drained away, leaving her empty and barren.

"Alright, doctor. You win. I was awake. I remember the whole thing in vivid graphic detail, and I'm not going to tell you what it was. What I will tell you is that Jor didn't do it, and I'll tell that to everyone else who asks me." Her voice was clear, with a strange feral edge to it. "They'll give me truth serum, and it still won't be Jor, and where will that leave you? You don't need that kind of idiot mark on your record any more than Jor does."

She turned her face back to Jor, kissed his cheek and drank in his eyes before she turned back to the doctor. "But if you have him arrested now," she growled, "I'll tell them all it was you. Do you have an alibi, doctor?" She saw his face flush as he stared at her in shock before she turned back to Jor again.

"I love you, match..." she whispered unevenly, leaning her head down, her forehead against his chin.

Dr. Muraida stared. He'd been watching this fascinating exchange in silence, and it became obvious to him that he was a little out of his depth to attempt to analyze their relationship...but it appeared his original assessment of Jor had been correct. He hadn't done anything wrong - nothing this girl would consider wrong, anyway.

"The MPs who went over the room didn't find any fingerprints at all, no evidence of any kind. They checked the doorpads and panels and the surface area surrounding where she was found. Just her prints on the Storage Bay entrance. He must have followed her in pretty closely, and then touched only...her." He cleared his throat, and then looked at Jor.

"Look, I've got some more tests to run. Why don't you stay here with her? The gelpaks will keep her from getting any infection now, sealed as they are. We'll be ready to do the skin graft later this evening, but we can't have her eat anything until then. I'm sure she would appreciate the distraction."

Jor tightened his jaw, muscles tightening in his cheeks as he ran his gaze over her. Even with the bruises, the dried blood that they hadn't quite cleaned off completely, her arm set with gelpacks and half her body wrapped, she was so beautiful. His spark, her pale skin almost translucent as he pushing himself up on one elbow and pressed his lips to her bruised neck. Sighing a little against her skin, he whispered.

"I love you, Jor-dan," she whispered, her head on his shoulder, his warmth behind her. "I won't let him hurt you. He won't. He's not quite crazy...he doesn't hate you. He hates me, and he's done, and let's leave it, until we know it's safe...and then we can take our time." Vicious fire twisted and burned in her eyes when she met his gaze again. "And we will take our time, match." Visions of Nathan's face as he poured the fuel onto her arm, the last remembered sensations her skin there would ever feel as it slowly crisped away...

They'd stood over Nathan, Dante, and Swede's broken bodies only two years ago.

After he was done with him, there'd be no Nathan left to break a second time.

Wick and Jor were asleep.

Moving as quietly as possible, he set up the necessary drugs for the skin graft operation. The nurse was already in the small surgery with the necessary equipment and the vat-grown graft. When he had finished assembling the drugs, he turned around to see that Wick was awake. She pursed her lips in a "shh" gesture, and allowed him to lift her to another cot.

Jor shifted a little, a frown creasing his brow slightly, but didn't wake up. The doctor wheeled her into the surgery and shut the door.

"You're going to be out for about three hours. When you wake up, the graft will be in place, with the regen units over it to speed up healing. By that point we should be able to take the unit off your other arm, as well. We'll need to leave a unit on your ankle until tomorrow morning, and it'll be tender for a few days, so take it easy, ok?"

The anesthesia took over, and Wick drifted away.

Thick heavy swaths of darkness wrapped her like a blanket, and she felt nothing but cold. She could see nothing at all. The inky blackness was heavy with the smell of petrol, but what made her shiver was the echoing, distorted sound that drifted to her, muffled by the night. Somewhere in the novocaine mist, Mode was chuckling at her.

Broken images of Angel as he'd been before floated past her as the sound intensified, becoming less distorted, closer. She remembered the way his face had looked when she'd knocked him out after Jor beat him nearly senseless. He'd been...broken. Confused. Defeated. Pathetic.

That boy was a stranger to the demon who hovered near her now. His face became visible, burning silver eyes hovering over hers as he leaned down to crush his lips against hers, bloody from the lip he'd split, and then she was burning, but instead of her arm it was inside, twisted nerves somehow taking the pain of Jor's possession and adding the agony of the fire, because her arm would never pain her again. Nerves were dead, all dead, and the numbness spread out in a rapid wave and consumed her as she struggled to breathe -

And woke, gasping, in Jor's arms.

Only, there was no one there. No Nathan.

He flicked his eyes around the room warily, serpentine orbs slitted until he noticed her quick breathing, her heartbeat pounding against him. Shocked back to awareness, Jor glanced down at Wick, the blinding light of the infirmary overheads constricting her pupils so much she squinted to see him. Placing a gentle hand over her face, he closed her eyes and laid her back down, strong arms still encircling her with all the protective calm he could manage to find.