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Absolutely Curtains -*- Copyright 2005 by Ellen Hayes.

Any resemblance between the writings in this work, and any actual persons or places, living or dead, are purely coincidental, except when used for satirical purposes.

This work contains adult situations, adult language, adult concepts, and possibly sex. If you are legally not allowed to read materials containing such things, then you will be breaking the law by reading this. I am not responsible. Continuing to read this document, or storing it or reproducing it in any format means that you explicitly affirm that you are legally allowed to possess and read such materials in your city, county/parish, state, and country.

All rights reserved. See the bottom for distribution rights.

Absolutely Curtains

"You want to apologize?" Coach Walls parroted at Jody, sounding incredulous and tired both.

All the arguments rose up in Jody's mind again, crowding what she wanted to say completely out, but they'd all been useless every other time she'd said them, and they'd gotten her yelled at a bunch of times already, so she just waited until they'd quieted down before saying, "I... I didn't..." She couldn't find the words for this either. "I didn't mean to, to do what I did. It, I just..." She dug in her school pack and found the letter. "I wrote it down last night; I can't really talk about it. But I wrote an apology out, and... and, and, I want him to get it. So he knows I'm sorry."

"Can I see that?" Coach Walls asked, and Jody handed her the letter, glad she hadn't sealed the envelope yet. Coach read through it as Jody stared at her desk and tried to calm her stomach.

Debbie sighed as she turned onto Tuck's street. The consult had gone well, but she didn't feel good about it; she was dreading coming here. If those fuckers would just get a cellphone, just ONE of them... NONE of them had answered their home phones, and Mike's mom had said that he was over here with Tucker. Which meant that the rest of them were probably here as well.

Dan's minivan, parked in front, proved she had guessed right.

Now all I have to do is get in there to talk to Mike or Dan or someone... And she had to make it relatively quick; while she was allowing a lot of time between consults this week, precisely so she could deal with things like this, she didn't have unlimited time. She checked her watch, and confirmed that she had just about an hour and a half before she had to be at Dianna's house. She pulled out her key map and checked, and it wasn't that far...

It took her a couple of minutes to force herself out of her car. She REALLY didn't like this place.

One more time, she decided as she hesitated in front of the sidewalk, and pulled her cellphone out of her purse.

"Why is Debbie wanting to come here, now?" Mike growled at the guys. Dan especially looked guilty as hell. "Dan?" He couldn't help glancing at Tuck; Tuck wouldn't like this AT ALL. But he was still pupating quietly. And Brian's kitten had somehow gotten in the hammock too; Mike pulled the cat loose, ignoring its squeaky complaints, before Tuck could notice and have an allergic reaction.

Irritatingly, George and Dan had escorted Debbie into the dining room, like she couldn't be trusted alone, and so she just held it in and stood there until Mike came in. Mike looked bad too, moving slowly and breathing hard, and he was wearing a paper surgical mask and an army coat over hospital scrubs.

She flashed to last week when he'd stabbed Tucker in the side as she sat on top of him, and she could smell the blood again like she had every night in her nightmares.

Interesting, Mike thought as he saw Debbie flinch and get pale. He was sure it wasn't him triggering it; he didn't look THAT bad. So it's something else.

"Wha-errrrk," he choked. Damned sore throat, he cursed as he tried to clear the goo out of his speaking pipe. "What do you want?" he forced out.

"He- I-" Mike looked up in time to see her shiver herself, as if she was shaking the tension out of her body deliberately. "Mister Dobson called me just as I was leaving school," she said, still showing nervousness but much less than she had been moments ago. "He said, that with the school board breathing down his neck, and those posters appearing after school was closed, that he was going to have to ask the police to check the school regularly, like make patrols and-"

"Damnit!" George cursed loudly.

"Wait!" Debbie pleaded. "He TOLD me this... which means he wanted ME to know it, and to pass it on to whoever was doing the posters. Which is also me, at least designing 'em," she said defiantly at Mike.

"What?"

Dan mumbled as Mike's gaze swung that way. "Did you sort of forget to mention this?" Mike sniped at Dan.

"Piss off, man," Dan shot back defensively.

"We've been busy," George answered, "and you've been out of the loop. That is, in fact," he said pompously, "why we came over this afternoon."

"Fuck..." This made things a lot harder, when he didn't need things getting harder.

"Anyway," Debbie said into the silence just before it got too long, "he said they'd probably check hourly or so. I'd guess that they'd just check the doors to make sure they're locked, and the parking lots."

"Shit," Mike, George, and Dan all said at the same time.

"Man, I'm gonna die if this keeps up," George added. "Like Mike did, from disease and no sleeping and stress and shit."

"Can you do tonight?" Debbie asked Dan.

"Ohhh God," Dan sighed. "I dunno, I mean, I am so damned tired-"

"I have some stimulants, light ones, if you need 'em tonight," Debbie offered. She'd paid Kim to hit three different doctors for diet pills a year or so ago, and she still had a bunch. Kim hadn't lost that much weight, and they made her overly nervous, so she'd stopped before she finished hers too. "One night won't kill you, as long as you can sleep Friday night and Saturday."

"I need to sleep TONIGHT," George stated firmly. "I feel like Mike looked yesterday."

"Come on, Jody," Coach Walls said gently, and Jody shook herself and got out of Coach's Suburban. Coach hadn't wanted to go to the hospital, for ANY reason - not that Jody was inclined to argue with THAT; she already had enough nightmares about the stupid hospital - so she'd suggested that they go to his house, instead, and either slip it into their mailbox or talk with whoever answered. Coach had said that Tucker wasn't out of the hospital yet, and she'd convinced Jody - sort of - that his parents would be a lot calmer now, especially if they weren't in the hospital. Jody wasn't sure, but Coach was, and more to the point, Coach Walls was taking her and would stay with her. She'd even suggested that Jody wear her cheerleading uniform to the house, to show that it was, in a sense, the entire team apologizing. Jody knew there would be problems if some of the girls found out about that part, but she didn't care; they all OWED him an apology, for what they had done to him. She had practiced what she was going to say during the entire trip, when she could concentrate enough.

Finally, Coach pulled over to the side of the road and pointed, "That's it, I think." Tuck's house, a kind of average looking boring suburban two-story, looked a little run down, but not a lot; more like they didn't care too much about washing the siding or mowing the lawn. They had a carport instead of a garage, though there were a lot of cars parked along the street here, and the furniture on their porch suggested they spent time out there. His house didn't look as nice as hers did, and the neighborhood wasn't as good either. I thought his dad and mom both worked? Jody wondered.

She shuddered at the unpleasant recurring memory of running into that woman at the hospital, but reminded herself that Coach Walls was with her - she looked, and she was right behind - and that Coach wouldn't let any crazy woman kill her.

The uniform was clearly visible through the spyhole.

"It's one of the cheerleaders?!" George gasped as he pulled back. He looked at Dan, but Dan was already running down the hall towards the kitchen. Instead of following, George yanked the intercom phone by the door and hammered the 'All Stations' call button. "Mike we got a cheerleader and an older woman at the front door, ringin' the doorbell," he spat into the microphone.

They'd moved into the kitchen, and what Debbie had thought was another telephone had blatted George's message at them.

As Debbie gaped - she couldn't believe any of them were stupid enough to come HERE, not after what they'd done to him - Mike turned around and his eyes were sharp. "Did you-"

"I didn't have anything to do with this!" Debbie gasped. "What the fuck are they DOING?!"

The door burst open and she yelped, but it was just Dan, babbling, "Mike there's a cheerl-"

"I know," he told Dan. "Dunno," he answered Debbie. "But whatever it was, they-" He stopped suddenly.

"What?" Debbie demanded, which elicited a frantic handwaving as his head turned away from her. "What are you-"

"Shut UP!" Mike hissed. Then he said, "Fuck!" and ran down the basement stairs. Now, Debbie could hear the crazed electronic squealing that had apparently attracted his attention. It sounded just like-

"OhmyGod," Debbie breathed as she raced after him, because the noises coming from the basement sounded just like the soundtrack from ER when someone's heart had stopped.

Tucker watched as Mike rushed into the rec room part of the basement and stopped, looking around wildly, but there was another set of footsteps on the stairs, and she came down a few seconds later. He stepped out of his hide behind and under the stairs and swung and hit the woman behind the knees to knock her down, then looked quickly up the stairs. The door was open but no one else was moving there, and so he twisted back around to the first target and racked the slide to chamber a round before jamming the butt of the stock into his shoulder. Clear/left clear/right target- TARGET NOT CLEAR! and fired the strobe at the figure on the floor.

Mike screeched to a stop, because Tuck wasn't there.

What the- His pod was there, but the blanket was empty and the wires were dangling, connected to nothing. Where-

The noise behind him made his body drop into a roll even before the flash of recognition hit him. "NO! HOLD!"

Even as Debbie was falling and turning around towards the horrible noise she knew it was a mistake; the blinding white flare obliterated her.

"HOLD GODDAMNIT!" Mike screamed as his eyes winced shut from the flash.

"Challenge," Tuck rasped, in such a raw and angry voice that his eyes came open again involuntarily, but he still couldn't see. "Four."

The flash card on the refrigerator was the key; it changed at least weekly, though they'd changed it last night at dinner and today when they got back from the doctor's. And if he didn't come up with the right answer, Tucker would assume that Mike was under duress, and he'd-

"Nine!" he remembered. "BACK OFF!"

A click told Mike that Tuck had put the safety on; he could just make out Tuck's form, shifting from a firing posture to a ready one as he swung to check the stairs again.

He couldn't see Debbie anywhere in his flashed-out field of vision. She'd disappeared without a sound.

"Whafuck?" Tuck growled as he started to pant. "Whafuck?!" he demanded, his voice rising plaintively.

"... The fuck is going on?" George whispered as he hit the 'All Stations' button repeatedly. He could just hear some yelling from the basement.

"Bad shit, man," Dan mumbled out of the speaker. "I think Debbie just ran into one of Tucker's nightmares 'r something."

"Fuck!" Tucker's nightmares, though he'd only seen a few, were legendary in their proportions - and Tuck was known to have problems waking out of them quickly. Or gracefully. He picked up the handset and asked, "Is she dead?"

"... I dunno," Dan admitted. "I'm not going down there."

"Fu-Ahh!" George gasped as the doorbell rang again.

Tucker had collapsed into his breathing posture with the shotgun at port arms, finally, as Mike got up; Mike moved in and took the shotgun out of his hands, listening carefully and reassured that Tuck was breathing adequately. He moved back to the ready rack, jacking the slide to unload the chamber and catching the shell, and put the Remington back into its place before slamming the locker door shut. "Get you back in the pod, mano," Mike said as he came back, but Tuck wasn't moving at all.

Neither was Debbie; she was just lying crumpled on the ground, making Mike wonder for an instant if Tuck HAD shot her. He snapped his fingers twice, and could hear the noise, which meant that Tucker had NOT fired a shotgun near him in an enclosed space. Then he shook his head, because he should have been able to figure that out.

Okay. Having a few seconds, Mike forced his mind open to the paths.

"Right." He moved over to the nearest intercom and hit the 'All Stations' button. "Tuck's secured, Debbie's alive. Dan, come down into the basement and help me rewire Tuck. George, find out what those people want and do NOT let them inside. Move." He hung up the handset and turned back.

Tuck was still rasping hard. "C'mon, man, back on the oh-two," he said as he grabbed Tucker's wrist. His pulse was so fast it was blurring. "Dan, c'mon!"

The door opened, and Jody was unpleasantly surprised to see someone else entirely. One of his friends?

"Whaddayawant?"

"Excuse me," Coach Walls said politely. "We're looking for the parents of Eugene Tucker? We'd like to speak to one of them for just a moment."

Jody wasn't sure, but as she stood there she THOUGHT she recognized him as one of the geeks that hung around with Tucker, one of the taller ones. "About what?" the guy asked, not opening the door any further as he glared at both of them.

A wave of nausea came up from her stomach, and Jody burst out, "I need to apologize, to him."

"We all do," Coach Walls added.

The guy at the door looked stunned for several moments, not saying anything, before he shut the door.

Jody looked at Coach Walls, but she looked as confused about what to do as Jody felt. Oh great!

"... The fuck is going ON?!" George complained under his breath.

Mike and Dan had managed to lever a not-very-helpful Tucker back into his cocoon and reconnect him, and while his oxygen saturation had been dangerously low - 83 - it was moving fairly quickly back up into the 90s.

Next, Mike thought as he turned around. Debbie. She still hadn't moved. He moved towards her and started to order Dan to help him move her, but the smell caught his attention as his mouth was opening, and he changed his mind. "Dan, go up and switch with George; I want to hear his report, find out what they want. Make sure the back door is locked as you go past. Go." Dan went.

When he was going up the stairs, Mike moved closer to Debbie, looking around her prone body and not noticing any outward signs. That's good...

"Mike," Tuck rasped. Mike turned around, and his eyes were open and tracking again, which was a good sign; his eyes looked somewhat blue, which meant they weren't completely dilated in frenzy either, which was better. <What is she doing here?> Tuck signed.

"She's..." There was a lot. "She's- Wait. Did anyone tell you what happened Thursday, after I got you out of the locker room?"

Mike couldn't tell what Tucker was signing, because it was fast and sloppy, but it looked angry, and he could guess. "It's got a lot to do with it, you-"

"They said," George announced as he thundered down the stairs, "that- It's one cheerleader and some teacher, maybe the cheering coach? They said they wanted to apologize?!"

Mike stared at George for a second, almost disbelieving what he'd said, until Tucker started to laugh horribly.

The sound was bad enough, but Debbie began an eerie mewling as she started to shiver, before she put her hands over her face, apparently to muffle her noise.

George was looking pretty freaked out too, at the noises.

"Shut UP!" Mike snapped. "George, you stay RIGHT here," he pointed. "Keep Tuck off Debbie until I get back. Fuck..." His throat felt like it was glowing white in pain.

"Do we just stay, or should we leave?" Jody asked. She really wanted to leave; this was getting scary again, and she could see her hands shaking, the envelope making it terribly obvious. "Can we leave?" she changed her mind. "I really-"

"No, we'll just wait a minute," Coach Walls ordered, but she didn't seem really sure.

As Mike went up the stairs, his mind raced. Need to get someone to take Debbie out of here; she's not gonna be able to do it on her own. Kim was out; she was babysitting at the Parkers, replacing Tuck. Kathy... No, she works after school. Sabrina? Yah.

"Damn, gimme..." He got lucky; Sabrina's phone number was on the Caller ID box in the kitchen. He grabbed a pen and pad and tried to legibly write her number as he ordered Dan, "Call Sabrina. Tell her that Debbie got here at a bad time and she's catatonic at the moment, psych trauma. Are those cheerleaders still here?"

"Just the one and the coach or whatever," Dan answered quickly.

"Call Book; I need some more help here. Then call Sabrina and get her over here immediately, her or someone if she has a better idea, to get Debbie up and out. I'll get rid of these two."

The door opened without any warning, startling Jody, but it was the Asian guy that Tuck hung around with, wearing a mask and rubber gloves-

She flashed to him kicking her and throwing Naomi on top of her, then slamming Ashlee in the face and kicking Jordan in the head, screaming in rage-

"I'm SORRY!" she screamed out as she lost her balance and fell to the porch, putting her hands over her head so when they beat her it wouldn't hit her head so much.

Mike looked in dull amazement as the cheerleader screamed something in a terrified shriek and collapsed. That's a guilty conscience if I've ever seen one...

I don't have time for this, he decided.

"You are not welcome here," he announced over her screaming, hoping they wouldn't notice his eyelids fluttering from the pain of speaking. "Try again tomorrow. Leave within sixty seconds or we're calling the cops."

He shut the door, locked it, put the security cable on the door, and turned back to the real problems in the basement. Fucking Wolf- Sheep-Cabbage puzzle down there...

"She WHAT?"

"Just get somebody over here," Dan insisted, "that can deal with psych trauma. One of your friends; Tuck's not in the mood for strange people right now."

"What the hell hap-"

"Just get 'em!" Dan ordered before he hung up on her.

"Book?"

"On his way."

"Did you get Sabrina? On the phone?"

"Yeah, she-"

Mike waved him silent. "Downstairs," he ordered, and made sure he could hear Dan coming down behind him. Fuck I hurt, he noticed. Nothing had really changed in the basement when he got down to the floor, which was good; except Debbie had shut up, which was a lot better. Too much going on... "Book's on the way. George; wait for him. Watch at the front door, make sure they both leave. Two minutes. If not, tell me; I want them off this property and gone and I'll call the cops if they aren't." Tuck's family was doing this all legit; he still didn't want to fuck up a possible prosecution by going gray or black on them. Not yet.

He ignored George's amazed, "Fuck!"

"Dan. Brief Tuck on why Debbie's here, what happened Thursday, and all that," he said as he moved past Debbie and to the middle of the room. "Tuck, shut up and listen. George, go. Dan, go." George went back up the stairs, muttering to himself, and Dan moved over and started talking quietly to Tuck. Mike opened the wall cabinet and pulled out the divider curtain, and yanked it all the way across the room; it wouldn't be much, especially versus sound, but it would give Debbie a little visual privacy and discretion. And me, come to think of it, he realized as he went into the workroom and spun the dial on his personal locker. It came open, and his gear was right there, just like it should be.

Guess that's the advantage of being an asshole about gear, he thought again as he disconnected the buttpack. Scrub first, he remembered.

Miranda had to almost carry Jody across the lawn and back to her Suburban, but she'd SEEN that Asian kid in action, and he looked possibly more serious now than he had when Tucker (she knew who he was now, and she'd never forget it either) was beaten and bloody. The last thing any of them needed was more trouble with the police. And she didn't know why he was masked and gloved, but she was afraid they had interrupted a medical emergency at the house.

Jody, meanwhile, was a LOT worse than she had been, sobbing incoherently and barely able to walk.

Dan had been talking and talking, about a third of it registering, but Tucker had finally caught on to something. <What day is it?>

"Huh?"

Asswipe.

"What day is it?" Dan repeated, and Tuck nodded impatiently. "Thursday."

Thursday? Tucker tried to remember what had happened, as Dan blathered on, but everything was hazy, and he couldn't remember. <Get Mike,> he signed.

"What?" Dan whined.

Tucker kicked out at him and signed,

Debbie found one of her hands being held around a cup and the other holding some pills; she looked, and recognized the round green Valiums. They went down hard, but the water in the cup helped.

What happened? she wondered, feeling very afraid and vulnerable, and looked up.

The masked and gloved figure in front of her made her wonder if she was in a hospital, for some reason, but she couldn't think what... "What?"

"You need to change your clothes," the man said quietly.

She flinched away. "Why?"

He tapped one finger on his ear twice and shook his head. "You need to," he said again.

"Mike?" she half-recognized.

"Yes."

"Wha-" The double-clack and the blinding flash.

Ooookay, she remembers, Mike decided as Debbie began screaming incoherently and and scrabbling feebly away from him, dropping the cup, which spilled all over the floor. Drugs went down; good. Clean that later, he decided, and began herding Debbie towards the basement bathroom; she could lock herself in there for a while, and Mike had placed a clean set of Tuck's scrubs on the sink, and he knew how to pop the lock easily when someone else arrived to deal with her, or if he had to evict her.

Finally he got her to go through the doorway, and before she could do anything else HE shut the door, losing his balance and falling to his knees as he pulled the door shut. "Jeezus," he sighed, which hurt, and tried popping his ears, which didn't help his hearing much and hurt too. She had, though, stopped screaming, he thought.

"What the hell are you doing?" Dan whined.

"Locking Debbie in the bathroom until further notice," Mike sighed as he got up. "Are they gone, from the front porch yet?" he asked Dan as he pushed through the curtain on one side. Tuck looked dull but awake, and the monitors said he was doing alright, considering he was post-frenzy.

"HellifIkn-"

"Go find out. C'mon, man!"

Tuck's eyes caught him. <Why is she in my house?> he signed carefully.

"Didn't Dan explain it to you?"

"I don't know," Sabrina repeated. "Just... meet me over there, okay? As soon as you can."

"Okay... bye," Pam replied, and Sabrina hung up. "Trauma?" she asked herself. "What..." What the hell is DEBBIE doing over there anyway?

Well, if you want to know something about Debbie... She picked up the phone and dialed Lisa's number.

"They're gone..." George confirmed. "What the hell..." They were both slumped in the hallway, next to Tuck's father's office, and Dan didn't look much better than he felt.

"Tuck's not doin' well," Dan said. "I tried to explain things to him, but I don't think it made any sense. I mean, fuck, I don't know what's going on. Mike locked Debbie in the bathroom; that's when she started screaming. I mean, before he did that she was screaming. Man," he sighed. "I don't KNOW what happened down there..."

George groaned softly. "Me fuckin' neither."

Tucker glared at Mike and signed, <Upstairs.>

"What? You fuckwit, we just put everything down here!"

Tucker continued signing, <Upstairs. Computer there. Speech S-Y-N-T-H-E-S-I-Z->

Mike interrupted, "Who cares?"

<Upstairs.> He was pretty sure he couldn't do it himself, at least not at the moment, but he was determined to get back into his room. The computer network could help compensate for his drugged brain, for one thing.

"Oh, uh, sure, I mean, it was like, no problem," Cory said, wishing she could be somewhere else. "I mean, my mom didn't have a problem with it or anything." I'm really glad he didn't hear me calling him a 'harmless geek' though... AND her mother wanted to meet him sometime soon. Oh God.

James' mom smiled at Cory some more. "Still, it was really considerate of you to go out of your way to, to, help him like that." She'd faltered in the middle, for no reason Cory could figure out.

"Yeah, well, it wasn't like I really did anything..." She was beginning to really regret helping him, if this was what she had to deal with.

"So what's the big deal?" Book asked as Dan opened the door for him.

"Lotsa shit," Dan sighed. "C'mon in. Dunno what Mike wants you to do... Debbie came by, an' Dobson told her that there's police patrols around school at night now, 'cause of the posters."

"Aw damn," Book commented. "You look like shit."

"I feel like shit. Need sleep. George's worse."

Debbie shuddered, but she'd almost cried herself out - or maybe the Valium was taking effect - and nobody had bothered her, inside the little bathroom in Tucker's basement. I knew it was a mistake to come here, she told herself, again; she was calming down about it, though. Finally. She tried wiping her face one more time, with the thick towel she'd been crying into.

"Shit," Mike mentioned, and regretted it as his eyes squeezed shut from the pain. Even with George and Book doing most of the work, it had been a bitch hauling everything back up and re-installing Tucker upstairs. And they'd missed a medication dose, too, which Tucker had resisted taking. And, naturally, after all that work, the little fuck had immediately passed out, instead of doing anything. You couldn't have done that DOWNstairs, asshole haole?

A red light flashed.

Doorbell? Oh fuck, who NOW?

Mike tried to get up, but his body just ignored him, leaving him sitting on the bed.

"It's Pam and Sabrina," the intercom said.

Shit. Shit shit shit shit... Mike managed to unbalance and slide down, which got him off the bed; the pain of the movement and position got his body moving and he directed it into a standing position. Life had been bad before; it was excruciating now.

"Man, this is so..." Sabrina glared at the door, but it didn't open. "I KNOW they're all home!" Tuck's house was starting to look like there was a party going on, with all the cars parked around and in the driveway. Pam had gotten there first, but she had waited for Sabrina instead of knocking or anything. Instead of asking why she'd waited, Sabrina had just ignored it like it hadn't happened, because she didn't want to get into an argument with Pam right then.

Finally, after several minutes of standing around, the door opened. "Whoa," Sabrina said accidentally, because Mike looked like he'd just gotten out of a hospital... or been working in one. He ought to go back, she thought as he hung on the door without saying anything for a few moments; he looked really bad.

"What happened?" Pam asked gently.

Mike's head came up, and he tried to speak a couple of times.

Oh, shit... What happened to Debbie? If HE looks like THIS... Pam was having similar thoughts, apparently, when Sabrina looked sideways.

"Debbie," said Dan, from behind Mike; Sabrina hadn't noticed he was there. "Came in," he continued, "and we were talking, when one of the cheerleaders and some woman, maybe the cheerleading coach, got here..." Mike was dragging the front open as he hung on, and he beckoned them inside.

"Where's Debbie?" Sabrina asked as the door shut behind them.

"Down- She's still downstairs, right?" Dan asked Mike.

A tapping on the door startled Debbie badly, even as she realized that time had been passing and things had apparently been happening while she'd been alone in the bathroom.

"Debbie?" she heard through the door. "It's Pam?"

"And Sabrina," came another voice. "Are you okay?"

"I-" She realized suddenly that she never had changed, and her clothes were still wet, where she had- "Oh NO!" she shrieked.

"What-"

Mike produced a key, stuck it in the knob, and instead of turning it or opening the door, he just walked - staggered, really - away.

"Debbie, it's me and Sabrina, just us," Pam called through the door. "Do you think we should go in?" she asked Sabrina quietly.

"He's got strep," Bill explained, "and we're dosing his friends to make sure they don't get it too."

"Well, we can't put it all on your insurance-"

"I know that." Idiot. "Just give me the receipts for each one, individually, and we'll settle it with their insurance companies ourselves." Dana had called George's and Allen's pediatricians and done some kind of information exchange with them, saving two doctor's visits; she'd left a voicemail saying that Dan's wasn't available today but she would square it tomorrow. Dan's was the easiest anyway; they'd traded information when Dan had gone camping with them, so Dana could treat him in the field if it became necessary. Like they thought it was now. No use in having them all sick... And these would replace the antibiotics he'd actually give each of them, out of the house stocks.

Debbie's downstairs, with Pam and Sabrina, Mike thought laboriously. Thinking had gotten hard in the last hour. He stared at the curtain across the basement room, hearing the girls babbling back and forth. Has it- He checked his watch; it hadn't been an hour, it had been half that or less, since the 'excitement' had started.

And I still have to write a report, he realized. Oh, my head. I need a computer... those are upstairs. I need to stay here, or with Tuck... Debbie's down here with Sabrina and Pam. Fuck... Dan 'r somebody needs to watch Tuck, have one on the ground floor watching the doors and shit...

This is not working, he realized. I need more help.

"Tahell?" Bill pulled his pager off his belt.

TTTSIXTTT PLZ COME HOME X MUCH EXCITEMENT X OVER NOW BUT IM TOO

TIRED TO DEAL X TFOURT END

I don't like this... Bill thought as he looked in the basket and then at his Palm to figure out what he'd missed. Excitement is bad. The tone of Mike's message didn't look like it was an emergency... He's sick, Bill remembered. Stamina's down. That'd do it. He put the basket down on the floor and shuffled gadgets for several seconds before realizing that with Mike having a sore throat, he wouldn't be able to easily explain anything over the phone. And Bill had to purchase the antibiotics plus what he'd already gotten, or drop it - and it didn't sound like an emergency; Mike had had those codes pounded into his head years ago - and therefore he might as well finish the shopping here before going home. Which entailed another gadget-shuffle before he could pick the basket up again. Maybe I ought to go to deuce gear... His Batman factor seemed to be incrementing yearly at this point, and he wasn't about to try gaining a hundred pounds just to gain more belt room to hang things.

Things were a little better after the quick shower, and Debbie had just thrown her clothes into the shower stall before she got in, figuring it was better if they were wet from that. The other two girls hadn't asked any questions about that, for which she was very grateful.

"I really want to go home," she whimpered to Pam.

Pam crooned back, "I know, baby, I know..."

"What happened?" Sabrina asked Mike, having found him sagging on the basement couch behind a curtain that hadn't been there the last time she'd been down here.

Mike's eyes closed - she couldn't see his mouth, behind the paper mask he was wearing - and he reached for a notebook and a pen, that were on the table down there, on top of-

"What're those?" she asked. Mike looked up, then reached out and pulled one up, unfolding it. She didn't know what it was at first, staring at the sort of human-shaped outline with holes in it. "Oh! Is that, like, a gun target?" He nodded. "Did, did you do that?"

Mike shook his head, then waved his hand broadly, dropping the paper target from his other hand, then started to write in the notebook. Guess he doesn't want to talk about it...

She moved to where she could see his printing.

"I got strep throat," he wrote, printing quickly and fairly legibly. "Talking hurts. Debbie came here to tell us something abt

whats happening at school. A cheerleader & coach came here - said to apologize? to Tuck - and scared Tuck." He stopped writing and looked up at her, his eyebrows up.

"Yeah, okay," Sabrina encouraged. "So..."

He looked down again and resumed writing. "They didnt do anything, but set off alarm. Tuck didnt know Debbie was here, or why - asleep the whole time. Hes got a fever too - 102 last check. But he heard 'cheerleaders'. She-" He scratched that out and wrote, "Debbie screamed, scared him - ?nightmare - wrong place and wrong time."

When she realized he'd stopped again, Sabrina pressed, "Yeah?"

Instead of writing any more, he leaned over and tapped the paper target, then reached up and grabbed Sabrina's arm suddenly and made a pistol with the fingers of his other hand, pulling her down to the couch and putting it to her head at the same time.

"Whatthe- Oh shit, you did that to Debbie?!" she figured out as she recovered her balance and stood back up.

He picked up the pad and wrote, "Tuck did. BAD time to scare Tuck."

If he wrote anything after that, Sabrina missed it, as she went to go help Pam; she thought she had all she really needed to know. Fuck! Those two are still fucked in the head about each other, and I know she's been scared of him all this time- well, hell, if she knew, or guessed, he could do something like THAT... There had been three holes in the paper target around the chest area, and a whole bunch of little ones sprinkled around the head.

Debbie still looked completely shattered, as Pam cradled her like a doll.

Maybe Tuck's not as cute and cuddly as we thought, she realized slowly.

But he's never done- he never even threatened anything like this with us... or with Debbie either! Not that she's ever said... and I can't believe she wouldn't have said it if he'd done it, if he'd threatened her...

George, being an asshole - even his friends said that about him - tended to brag about what a badass he was, how he could do this and that if he was provoked, like most of the weaker boys did. Tuck hadn't been like that; that was one of the reasons she could stand being around him. Mike doesn't do that either, really... Like Daddy; Daddy doesn't brag about it, doesn't even want to talk about it...

There was a noise behind her, and then Sabrina understood in a flash what had happened to Debbie, and why she was so upset, even so long after it had happened. And it was only Dan, and he wasn't even looking at her.

"It's Debbie's friend Lisa," George said over the intercom in a quiet rush. "Front door."

Maybe we could hide Tuck at MY house for a week? Mike wondered. Why NOW? And where's Six? He picked up the intercom handset and said, "Hold her, don't-"

"Mike?" Dan interrupted. "Sabrina said, 'Want me to talk to her?'"

I love you, Mike thought in relief as he nodded. "Yes. Stall until I get there." He hung up the intercom. "Book, take these downstairs, give 'em to Pam. Announce yourself first..."

"Are these-"

"Don't ask, ahhh..." Mike had to feel his throat to see if it had cracked and he was hemorrhaging to death.

Sabrina nodded at Mike that she was ready, and Mike unchained, unlocked, and opened the front door. Sabrina started, "Lis-"

"Where IS she?!" Lisa demanded as she started to push her way into the house.

"Goddamit Lisa, NOT now!" Sabrina snarled at her as she pushed Lisa back outside and shut the front door. "Debbie's freaked out but alright; if you get mad- Just DON'T get mad here, right now," she ordered.

"FUCK y-"

"Debbie almost got shot," Sabrina announced.

"Wh-" Lisa got out as her face twisted into some of the rawest pain Sabrina had ever seen.

"If you act like that," Sabrina said, quieter, "you'll get more trouble than you want to deal with, right now. Just... Debbie's mostly o- PHYSICALLY okay," she changed. "Pam's been calming Debbie down, and Mike said he got twenty milligrams of Valium into Debbie about, uh, twenty minutes ago. She needs you," Sabrina said, looking back into Lisa's eyes as she reached out and held Lisa's arm above the elbow, "to be calm and cool about all this, not freaking out too, okay?"

Lisa gasped, "She's okay?"

"Totally physically okay; emotionally wrecked," Sabrina said as she backed up and opened the front door again. Lisa came in this time, and Mike was still there in the hall.

"Tughagh," he gargled unintelligbly for an unpleasantly long time. "Tuck wanted to say, and for you to tell Debbie, that he's, he apologizes for what happened to Debbie today. It was... a massive case of coincidental bad timing, and he's sorry."

"Well, why doesn't he say it to her face?" Lisa snarled, still off balance.

"Because Tuck can't talk, and Debbie doesn't do sign language," Mike croaked.

"Mike, stop talking," Sabrina ordered. "Lisa, she's downstairs. Her clothes got messed up; Mike said he'd make sure they were washed and returned clean, and she's wearing scrubs. They seem to have a lot of them around," she said as she beckoned Lisa towards the back of the house.

"I got her some replacement stuff," Mike said. "Clean, on the table downstairs."

"You what?" They might have said it at the same time.

"I refuse to answer questions," he said, wincing.

"Valerie's?" Sabrina asked, and Mike nodded. "Stop talking, Mike; you're only making it worse. I'll, we'll deal with Debbie from here." He nodded and let them go.

Bill pulled into the driveway just in time to see a cluster of women on the sidewalk, supporting one in the middle as if she'd been injured. What the... He slowed and looked closer. The front door, beyond them, was shut tight, he noted, and the middle girl in the cluster appeared to be Debbie Carstairs. Huh? What happened? He knew it couldn't be too extreme, because if it had been she wouldn't be moving; plus Mike had indicated it wasn't that bad. Which leaves a LOT of things that COULD have happened...

He pulled up into his parking spot under the full-length carport and got out. Dan's here, at least. There were two minivans, but he recognized the one. He can unload the stuff in the car if I need to deal with something, he decided as he walked to the back porch. The door opened without fuss or alarm, and Bill noted the flash card on the refrigerator door absently as he nodded at Dan.

"Mike's in your office, typing or something," Dan said immediately. "Book's watching the front door, Tuck's upstairs, and George is watching him. Uh, I think everyone else is leaving or they left already... Me Tuck Mike Book 'n George," he listed.

"Good. Could you get the bags of stuff out of my car, and put them on the table in here?" Bill asked as he handed Dan the keys.

"Writing the after-action report," Mike said as he concentrated on the screen.

"Let me read it," Mr. Tucker said as he moved in and turned on another monitor. "Keep typing," he said, so Mike continued.

The pain pulled Tuck awake, as he knew it would eventually; he'd palmed the pain pill when Mike had forced drugs on him. Ah, man, he sighed as he moved in the hammock. Right. Room. What... Something bad and weird had happened. I almost shot Debbie too, he remembered. Why? She'd been torturing him... and- no, that had been Ashlee, and she'd cut him open, but...

His brain was not behaving well.

Report, he realized, and went looking for one, in the classified family reports section.

There wasn't one there yet. Mike, you shit- Maybe he's writing it, Tuck realized.

regina$ lanfinger -l mike

Login Name Machine Tty Idle Login Time

mike none boskone *tty2 4 Oct 16 22:11 UTC

regina$ ssh jestyr boskone

Password:

You are on pty2 of BOSKONE. Capacitance is useless!

Last login: Sun 04 Oct 06:28:11 1997 on pty4

No mail

jestyr@boskone$ ps -u mike

PID TTY TIME CMD

3831 tty2 0:06 pico report-mike-16oct

Pico! Sheesh. Get A Real Editor. Apparently, Mike was downstairs and still writing the report.

jestyr@boskone$ who -q

root mike btuck btuck jestyr

users=5

Also apparently, Dad was home.

jestyr@boskone$ write btuck 'awake. who is in house?' EOF

['lanfinger' is a program written by Bill and Eugene Tucker to finger the entire LAN; useful if you're not sure who's logged in where - ellen]

"No, wait," Debbie said as they started to stuff her into Lisa's car. "I'm okay." She wasn't, but the Valium was rapidly distancing her from things. And she could get into a car without help. And she needed to be in her car anyway; it had all of her stuff in it.

"You are NOT okay!" Lisa spat. "That-"

"DAMNIT LISA!"

"Don't!" Sabrina said as she grabbed Debbie's arm and pulled her away. "Debbie, just-"

"I can cope, okay!"

"This is coping?" Sabrina challenged. "Look," she said softly. "Lisa's here- she came here to help you. We all did, Debbie."

"I know..." She forced everything back down. "I just... I have stuff I need-" She looked at her watch frantically. "Damnit, Sabrina, I have to GO! I have a consult!"

"Are you up to it?" she asked incredulously.

"I have to be," Debbie said. Damnit! I didn't mean to say that...

"Debbie," Lisa said from behind her, and she turned so she could see Lisa. Then she looked back at Sabrina, because Lisa's face hurt too much to look at. I don't deserve her- "You can cancel it-"

She interrupted Lisa, "I don't need to." She took a deep breath. "I am getting okay. I can deal. Nothing ACTUALLY happened except I got scared."

"How can you just say that! That little shit almost-"

"'That little shit' didn't, Lisa," Debbie told her. "That's the point. He could have but he didn't. Fuck, you've seen his nightmares, haven't you?" Sabrina had shown her the notebook and the explanation Mike had written out, after he'd left it on the basement table.

"Lisa hasn't," Sabrina said. "In fact, you weren't there either, when she- That footboard that had that big crack in it? At my place?" she reminded Lisa. "That was Val and that lamp, 'cause she had a nightmare, about sharks or something, when someone wiggled her toes when she was sleeping..." Pam nodded after a guilty look, and Debbie wondered what that was about.

"Well if you KNEW about this then what the hell were you doing over there?!" Lisa demanded, shifting her anger from Tucker to Debbie.

"I had... I had to talk to them, Dan an' them, and they weren't home, they were over here-"

"About what?" Pam asked.

"Uh..." I really don't want to- She looked at her watch. "Look, I HAVE to LEAVE."

Pam spazzed, "Don't change the subject! What were-"

Lisa interrupted, "Pam, if she can't talk about it she can't talk about it, okay? Debbie, you don't have to go," Lisa reiterated.

"It's the best thing for me to do," Debbie countered. "It'll get my mind off... this," she said. "Can we go?"

"Are you sure?" Sabrina asked.

"Yes." She realized she owed them something, and hugged Sabrina lightly for a second. "I really appreciate you coming over, and you helped tremendously. I feel a lot better. Now, I just want to get some distance, and AWAY from here..." Coming here had been a horrible mistake; every time she came here things got worse. "Lisa... look, you don't have anything today, right? Can you drive me around for a while, until the Valium wears down? In my car? That's where all my stuff is," she reminded Lisa. Lisa looked torn, and looked back at her car even as she took a few steps to follow Debbie.

"Come on, Lisa," Debbie sighed, "we can talk about it on the way, if you'll drive. And maybe get something to eat on the way, okay?" And, Debbie hoped, she could talk Lisa out of doing anything stupid, like trying to get back at Tucker. It was a horrible horrible thing that had happened, she told herself while trying not to actually think of it, but she'd heard from Sabrina that Tuck had apologized, and he wouldn't have if he hadn't meant he was actually sorry about what had happened. She knew that much.

"Why did you tell her I apologized?" Tuck wrote. "You fuck!"

Mike sighed. "Because-" He changed his mind and typed, "becuz it was the right-" He backspaced and changed it to, "Right Thing to do. Besides, you don't want to shoot her. Wrong target."

Tucker had started to write something else, but he erased it before Mike could read it; apparently his dad got it though, because he chuckled.

"Damn," Pam sighed as she watched Debbie and Lisa drive off in Debbie's car, leaving Lisa's across the street.

"What?"

"I can't believe Valerie would do something like that," Pam said.

"But-" Damn, she's right, Sabrina realized, amazed.

"But what?"

"I kept thinking it was TUCKER who did it, and it almost makes sense..."

"But they're the same person," Pam said.

"I know. But... I don't think of them quite the same," Sabrina admitted.

"I think it's her dad, I mean..."

"What?"

"I can't believe she'd do something like that! Pointing a GUN at somebody?!"

"Well, hell, Pam, remember what happened a week ago? His dad said that Tuck almost DIED, and some of that was from the cheerleaders beating on him. I'd..."

"Why didn't they just call the police?"

"Oh come on," Sabrina said scornfully.

"Well why not?" Pam challenged. "They'd have come and, you know, whatever. If he was that scared-"

"Remember that nightmare?" Sabrina reminded her. "If Val- Tuck- Damnit! Whatever," she huffed, "if Tuck had been THAT scared AND thought the cheerleaders were coming back- IN his house alread-"

"So why not call the police?"

"Pam, you can get killed in five SECONDS. Waiting five MINUTES for th-"

"Well why didn't he make- I mean, he had almost all his friends there! Doesn't he trust them?"

"If he just woke up from a nightmare, how was he supposed to know where they were?"

"Well why did she have to... I mean, a GUN?"

"You say that like they're evil, Pam-"

"Well I think they are!"

Sabrina stared at her friend. "You WHAT?"

"Look at how much trouble, how many people are killed in this country with guns every year?"

"Guns aren't the problem-"

"Yes they ARE! They make it too easy to kill-"

"Oh hey," someone said, and they both looked up to see Kelly, Tuck's Little Sister waving tenatively at them. "Uh," Kelly said tenatively.

"Um," Pam said, and she looked at Sabrina as Sabrina looked at her.

"What's going on?" Kelly asked, which was exactly the question Sabrina was afraid of.

"Yeah, see you guys..." Brian got out of the car and grabbed his bag, waved at them again, and headed towards his house.

The girls standing around out front, by the sidewalk, got his attention. "Uh, hey," he said, wary. He recognized Sabrina (not hard when she was there nearly every night) but not the other two... though he had a vague sense of seeing them before.

The white strobe told Tuck he had a call coming in on his line; when he switched the KVM to Arrakis, CallerID said it was Rachel. He stared dully at the screen, wondering what she wanted. Later, he finally thought.

"What was that?" George asked finally, as Tuck switched back.

Tuck sighed, switched to Tattooine, and typed, "say -b 'caller I d program'," before switching back to Regina and Mike's report. His chest burned, he noticed for a few moments.

"Dad? There's three girls here..." Brian said as he came in the front door. "Sabrina, Pam, and Kelly. They'd like to see Tuck."

Bill looked at Mike, who nodded, before shaking his head. "Not upstairs," he groaned. "Wait downstairs."

Bill looked back at Brian as Brian acknowledged, "Got it," and shut the front door again.

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Bill asked mildly.

Rachel thought about leaving another message in Valerie's voicemail, and decided not to. I mean, I left enough... I think? I wish SOMEONE would call me back, though... Did I do something wrong? She noticed she was chewing on her lip again, and stopped herself.

Bill had brought Mike upstairs, shooed George and Allen downstairs to keep a watch on the girls with Dan - he felt he was overreacting at the same time as being unable to resist the impulse - and shut the door. "Alright, guys, after-action review. Tuck?" His eyes opened. "After- action..." Eugene was nodding tiredly.

"Alright," Bill said, and collected his thoughts into some kind of order. "We need to set the access policy down." They nodded at that. "Good reactions; bad target; good control, Mike. Eugene, did you really want to shoot her?"

, Tucker signed, and Bill winced. His elder son was not allowed to keep firearms in his room for that reason; apparently, even a combination lock in another room wasn't-

No, Bill changed his mind. She WASN'T shot. Scared yes... Why? He knows her by sight... "Go on," he prompted.

<Heard C-H-E-E-R-L-E-A-D-E-R on intercom then a scream,> Tucker continued. He breathed for a while, and Bill glanced at the pulse oximeter - it read 94, which wasn't that great considering that he was on oxygen via a nonrebreathing mask. His breathing also sounded thick and labored. He resumed signing,

"How could you not recognize her?"

"Alright, that makes sense," Bill admitted. "Mike?" Mike just nodded without adding anything. "Anything else?" Bill pushed, and got a shake in reply. From what he could tell, she had just made some noise and then gone into the wrong place at the precise time Eugene was waking up from a nightmare next to the main house armory. "Good teamwork, guys." He turned to Mike and asked, "How was she doing, when you last saw her?"

"Freaking," he wheezed. "Calming down. Got her friends to take care..." He trailed off for a few moments, then continued, "... take care of her. Take her out. Get her..."

"Someone to deal with the upset?" Bill supplied, and Mike nodded. "Alright. Good idea, there. Eugene... Good job," he said carefully.

<More careful,> he signed back, and Bill nodded gratefully. It had definitely not been optimal, but no one had been shot, and it was clear that the procedures had worked, and that both of them had reacted well from their training.

"So. Three girls are here to see you... Sabrina..."

He couldn't think of the names, but Mike supplied, "Kelly an' Pam."

Those were the other two. "Thanks. Make it short and get some more rest. Eugene, did you damage yourself in the incident?"

<Not sure. Hurts. Hurt before. Too D-R-U-G-G-E-D,> he complained.

"Take as much as you need to sleep, Eugene; that's an order." His son flicked a casual salute, which meant he'd probably obey.

When she saw him, Sabrina asked, "Mister Tucker? Can we-"

"For a short time... no more than twenty minutes," he said, looking at his watch. "They both really need to sleep, and this afternoon did Eugene no good at all."

"What?" Kelly asked.

"Don't ask," Pam warned Kelly.

"Pass along that it would be a very bad idea to surprise either of them, or anyone here, for at least the next couple of weeks," Mr. Tucker told them. "And visitations will have to be limited; Mike's somewhat contagious, and Eugene needs sleep to heal too."

"We'll be good, Mister Tucker," Pam assured him.

When you have shot and killed a man you have in some measure clarified your attitude toward him. You have given a definite answer to a definite problem. For better or worse you have acted decisively.

In a way, the next move is up to him.

-- Raphael Aloysius Lafferty

Distribution: No part of this work may be distributed as an original work by another person or group. Permission is given to redistribute this by electronic means, as long as the entirety of the work (from the BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE header to the END PGP SIGNATURE footer) is distributed, and credit is given to the original author, me. And no fee may be charged. Archiving is permitted provided no fee is charged for access.

All rights reserved.

• @>--,--'----- Ellen Hayes o===[-------- __ vicki .sig +

-=[1990]=- / virus 12.2 + http://www.barkingduck.net/ehayes PGP key: EFC9 5D55 (1996) +

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