In Pieces
Sequel to ‘Voices’
Fire & Ice AU
By Gumnut
29 Aug – 7 Sep 2004

The parking lot was dark and cold. Little sunlight made it down here underneath the building; a small gap cluttered by weeds the only source of natural light. There were fluorescent tubes placed at strategic locations in the concrete ceiling, but vandals had smashed a good percentage of them, and scribbled signatures on several others. Consequently the concrete haven for cars was full of shadow and deep corners.

In one such corner a black shape sat silent and alone.

Kitt had fled here at the doctor’s words.

They had seemed tinny and far off, transmitted by the comlink, and the pulse, the trembling of the hand holding it had set his senses alight with fear.

The time had come.

They hadn’t been fast enough.

And Michael was dying.

The desert had been unforgiving, the depth of night settled over it like an impenetrable blanket. Those endless moments as he and his brother raced towards salvation, Kitt sending off signals to Devon, to Bonnie, to anyone who could help.

Devon had called in air support, two medivac choppers meeting the speeding AIs, their spotlights pinning Kitt and Karr in the dark. He had had to shout at his brother to stop, Karr, reluctant to give his responsibility to another, desperate to keep moving.

It had taken time, the choppers landing nearby, and Kitt had run circles inside his CPU, his pain, Michael’s pain, and pure desperation driving him over the edge. The amber spark that shared his world was so dim, so small, and fading. Words no longer possible, he cradled the presence, attempting to feed it warmth and light, to brighten it, to maintain its failing hold on life.

As Karr flung open his door to give the medics access, the stark white of the spotlight did little but light up the glistening red spilt all over the Stealth’s interior. And, as they gently removed the unconscious Nick from his own passenger seat, Kitt could only focus on that red spattering his brother, its glaring colour imprinting on his circuits as the amber in his mind dwindled.

//“Michael?”// It was a whimper, a whisper from his voice box that had one of the medics raising an eyebrow. The medical team must have thought it odd to be rescuing two unconscious, seriously injured men from two recently speeding cars in the middle of the desert, but they were professionals, their focus on the injured, and they wrapped up Michael and Nick securely with tubes, bandages, breathing apparatus, and bundled them onto the choppers and took flight.

Kitt and Karr were left alone in the dark.

Neither AI hesitated, both launching into high speed, churning up a cloud of unseen dust, but Kitt kept only a small part of his attention on driving, the rest of him was far up above the earth with his partner, holding that spark, clinging to it.

//Michael, please.//

He still hadn’t received an answer.

And possibly never would.

He lost Michael twice during that flight. Each time staring into unforgiving oblivion as his processors froze, the amber spark dwindling out of existence to be replaced by a nothingness. Both times he had been saved, the Trans Am swerving on the road, the bright spark of electricity arcing down the link, static dancing in its wake. Michael’s presence flickered like a candle in the wind and Kitt grabbed at him, clutching him close, holding on to him with a desperation that was physical.

He couldn’t let him go.

The brothers had reached Tucson half an hour after the choppers and holed up in the hospital car park. An hour later the Knight semi pulled up.

Bonnie, obviously distressed, had hurried over, her already worried expression almost crumpling at the sight of the damage Kitt had sustained. Her fingers traced the cracks in his shell that ran the length of his driver’s side. The metal beneath was mangled, and it was painful, but fortunately nothing integral had been damaged. A day or two in his garage with Justin would fix the problem.

“Kitt, are you okay?”

“Michael.”

“I-I know.”

“Go to him, Bonnie. Please.”

“Karr?” Her eyes tracked over the silent Stealth next to him. She received no answer.

“He is undamaged. Please, Bonnie.”

She ran her hand across his fender, her voice almost a whisper. “Call me if you need me.” And then she was swallowed by the hospital.

Alex arrived via a Knight Industries chopper half an hour later, Kitt having pleaded with Devon for Karr’s sake. She passed the two cars on the way from the helipad. She didn’t say anything. A concerned glance in Kitt’s direction, a hand brushing across Karr’s fender, and then she, too, disappeared into the building that held their partners.

And then the wait had truly begun.

Neither AI said much to the other. There was nothing that could be said that could solve anything.

The sun had risen before they heard any news. And when that news came…

Kitt shuddered in the dark. This underground parking lot was not the most pleasant of places, but it served the purpose of hiding him from the world.

Karr had called after him when he fled the hospital. Kitt had ignored him.

He didn’t know why he’d left, he just had. Ironically his physical position had no bearing on his contact with Michael, he could be in the hospital room with him and the amber spark of his partner would be just as dim and unresponsive.

Oh, Michael.

Kitt flung himself open to his partner, all shields dropping, Michael’s pain swamping him. If he could give himself, he would.

An agonised keen filled the empty spaces of the parking lot.

Please…please don’t leave me alone.

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

He ran for a long time, the darkness pursing him relentlessly. It was like a storm cloud and it struck at him with forks of black lightning in the guise of his name.

<Nick!>

No, get away.

Each time it neared, his hackles rose as if in response to a static charge. Contact meant pain.

So he kept on running.

And it kept on coming.

He didn’t realise he couldn’t escape.

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

Alex approached the door to Nick’s hospital room filled with trepidation. Part of her knew what she would find in there. A very sick, fragile echo of the Nicholas she knew. She had seen it before.

And she hated it.

One of the things she loved about Nick was his strength, his vitality. And to see that stolen from him, pale, weak, a mere shadow of himself…

It hurt.

To see him hurt.

And it happened so often.

It was a single room, the Foundation providing all expenses for both injured agents. Michael’s was two doors down, Bonnie at his bedside.

Alex shied away from the thought of Michael’s condition more even than that of her injured partner. Thoughts of pity relief, worry, and a blinding grief were a muddled turmoil in her mind.

Michael…

Nick’s room had a wonderful view of the hills surrounding the city, and her gaze lingered there momentarily before inevitably turning to the face of her unconscious lover. As predicted, he was pale, a swath of bandages almost a turban on his head. The right side of his face was swollen in a mass of purple bruises to the point that she could barely recognise him.

He was plugged into several machines, most of which she had no idea as to their purpose. His right leg was protected by a tent beneath the light hospital bed sheets, hiding a flesh wound caused by a bullet meant for more harmful regions.

She felt numb as she grabbed a chair and drew it towards the bed. She had been right in her imaginings – this was but a husk of the man she loved. Beaten by the life he had had thrust upon him, and then chosen to live.

“Nick?”

She didn’t expect a response. His soft breathing and the click of the machinery surrounding him were the only sounds in the room. She swallowed and her hand found his, long fingers hampered by medical tape, an IV, and a blood pressure monitor. They were warm, his skin supple under her touch, but limp and lifeless.

Doctor D’Angelo had been kind, succinct, gentle, but the words had been said.

Brain damage.

There was the possibility of brain damage. His injury had caused swelling and pressure, the medical terms a blur, and the doctors unsure about the result, but the conclusion was clear.

Although they said Nick would most likely wake up soon, there was a question as to whether he would ever be Nick again.

Her fingers tightened, and she did all she could do.

She held on.

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

Devon Miles stifled a yell of frustration and, picking up the phone, hurled it the length of Kitt’s empty service bay.

It landed with a loud clatter and the sound of breaking plastic, but, frankly, he didn’t care.

He was alone in the back of the Semi, and to a certain extent he was quite grateful for it. But the reason why he was alone was the direct source of his anger and grief, and he wished with the entirety of his being for the safe return of his missing company.

He had sent Michael out to die.

It was the basic truth. Sure, he had sent Michael on life endangering missions before, and he had been injured, on several occasions, but this time…..this time he had truly done it.

He sat down heavily, his head falling into his hands. Life was so damn unfair.

A flicker of Michael’s smart ass grin skipped across his mind, desperate to mask out the pale, lifeless, machine driven husk he had looked down upon in that sterile white hospital room. He hadn’t been there when the doctor had delivered the diagnosis. He had been playing clean up, and Foundation representative, as the news of the events in the Mexican wilderness spread through both official and unofficial channels. He had seen the children to their terrified parents, seen their smiles, their happy tears. He hadn’t been informed of the exact price of that relief until he finally made it to the hospital.

The doctors he demanded information from spoke clearly, calmly, but their words blurred in Devon’s mind, their meaning wrenching at his heart.

Oxygen starvation.

Nil brain activity.

Full life support.

Too long.

Too little.

Too late.

He rubbed his eyes, refusing to let the moisture build up and betray him.

Bonnie had locked herself in Michael’s room, refusing to leave his side.

Kitt…

Kitt had disappeared.

His soul ached for the AI. The gentle entity had had front row seating to his driver’s injuries, the events leading up to which were still not entirely clear with both human participants unlikely to file a report in the near future. Karr was still alone in the parking lot, but the chances of Devon approaching the AI and getting an answer to his query were about on par with Michael’s chances of survival.

His brow furrowed again, and he swallowed.

No, he wasn’t one of Karr’s favourite people.

The Mexican authorities had been able to sketch together some of the story. ‘The Separatists’ had had a virtual military base out in that desert. A large stash of weaponry had been found, mostly offensive, some drugs, money…

And dead people.

There had been a lot of them.

Devon suspected the majority of the toll belonged to Nicholas. The man was a professional at everything he did, and he had no doubt he was capable of it. If required.

He had stopped by the ex-agent’s room shortly after seeing Michael, and he didn’t look much better than Kitt’s driver, despite the doctor’s claims he would wake soon. Dr Christopher’s eyes had looked as hollow as Bonnie’s, and Devon had had to consider briefly which was the more positive prognosis – death or brain damage. He had to admit to not knowing the elusive man as well as he could have, but he guessed Nicholas would prefer the former to the latter.

He felt like throwing something else.

The smashed phone was an innocent bystander in a conversation he had been having with the Mexican official in charge of the investigation. Michael and Nick had sacrificed themselves to save two children, but the lead perpetrators in the travesty were yet to be located. Chances were they had escaped and skipped the country.

The criminal factor had won again.

It was a war Devon had fought for most of his life. The cause of right over wrong, the fight for justice on the part of those unable to fight for themselves. They had won many victories, but for every success there seemed to be a dozen more threatening to fail. And those failures cost so much.

In the past, he had seen Michael shattered beyond his ability to cope. He had seen the man’s face crumple at the news of yet another innocent life taken.

The look Devon had received when he had handed over the paperwork for this case had been frightful. Michael felt deeply, his emotions often boiling to the surface, and he empathised with his clients, in Devon’s opinion, far too much. But it was what made him the man he was, and that anger served as fuel in the drive to succeed where others had failed.

Nick, on the other hand, gave away nothing. He had simply picked up the folder, glanced over it, asked one or two technical questions, and, while Michael spat bitter words, Nick’s expression froze over, a brief, unrecognisable flicker to his eyelids his only response.

The two men were extremely different, yet so much the same.

Much like their AI partners.

As if prompted by the thought, there was a sudden scream and a spine-clawing screech of tyres.

Devon stood, only to fall to his knees, as the trailer shuddered and slid sideways, taking his feet from under him.

An engine snarled.

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

It hounded him. It chased him.

It scared him.

<Nicholas, please, it’s me.>

There was something intrinsically lonely in that statement, but Nick was too terrified to care.

And at some point he discovered he could not escape.

He was hurting. He was cornered.

The darkness continued to loom, daring to shift even closer.

So he did the only thing he could.

He attacked.

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

Karr was in pain.

It wasn’t physical pain, it was purely emotional, but that just made it worse.

Nick was unconscious and there were reflections of his injuries bouncing down the link, but Karr had handled similar on many previous occasions, and they were easily dismissed. It was the uncertainty, the missing mental connection with his driver, and the lack of response from the dim, blue glow in the back of his mind that was slowly driving him over the edge.

He ached for Nicholas to awaken. For his partner’s reassuring presence to return to him. For things to return to how they were.

The thought that they may never be again drilled holes in his processor.

Kitt had dutifully relayed the doctor’s words to him. The shocking echo of distress that had accompanied that transmission had almost crippled the older AI, the news of Michael Knight’s condition as painful as learning of his own driver’s fate.

Karr was in pain, but Kitt was in so much more.

The younger AI had walled off their link and fled the parking lot, his distress causing him to take out a road sign in his haste. Karr had wanted to follow him, caught between his brother and his driver, calling out to him verbally, unable to break the block the younger AI had thrown up. Passers-by had stared, but he didn’t care in the slightest. Let them stare. They had no understanding, no concept of what existed in the world around them. It was their loss.

Karr was going to lose Kitt. If they lost Michael…Kitt could not survive without his driver anymore than Karr could survive without his. The desolation that thought conjured up was overwhelming.

Karr stood to lose the three most important people in his life.

The dark AI curled up in his processor; so alone at a time he really needed someone.

But there was no one.

Part of him wanted to speak to Alex, but the rest of him shied away from the emotional exposure it would require. She had been down to see him over the last couple of days, asking after him, offering her company, but he had been unable to open up to her, too frightened of the possibilities to admit to them.

<Nick, please.> It was pure desperation that threw the pulse down the link and he was shocked and surprised to suddenly receive a reaction.

The blue glow shimmered, flickering towards wakefulness.

<Nick?>

Karr shuddered as Nick woke slowly. He hurried forward, desperate to touch his partner, to know he would be all right.

<Nick?>

The blue spark jumped in surprise, almost flinching. Karr slowed his approach, suddenly wary.

<Nick?>

Nick stared at him, and, then, to Karr’s dismay, his partner backed away.

<Nick?>

There was a wave of questioning, almost curiosity. Karr answered it by reaching out to touch, to reassure, and was given a great deal of hope as Nicholas in turn reached towards him.

They touched.

And Karr was almost flung back into the depths of his processor at the pain the contact caused. The spark that was Nick screamed, echoes of agony bouncing back and forth across the link. No! Nick! He reached out instinctively to catch his partner, only to have him flinch away.

The AI staggered under the sudden wash of fear emanating from his partner. What was wrong? This shouldn’t be happening. Nick?

The blue spark trembled for a second before turning and fleeing from the AI connected to him.

Karr stumbled in shock. Nick? He moved forward, deeper into the mind of his partner, chasing the darting spark.

<Nick, please.>

No response except wave after wave of fear. Nicholas was afraid of him. Even during their violent history, Karr had never felt such fear from his driver. It was so naked, soul bearing, so revealing…

<Nick!>

He wouldn’t touch, he just wanted to communicate, snap his driver out of what Karr could only describe as hysteria.

<Nicholas, please, it’s me.>

The blue spark suddenly turned, cornered in his own mind, and for a moment the two beings stared at each other, the blue trembling in fear, the black emanating a similar emotion for an entirely different reason.

Karr kept himself still, neither approaching or backing away, almost terrified Nick would flee from him again. Nick?

The blue presence wavered before him.

And suddenly flared, striking out.

Karr was taken completely by surprise. Blue lightning struck at him, cleaving him in half, and for a moment he ceased to exist as his processors overloaded, but a microsecond later his awareness flickered back in a scream of agony. Nick! No!

The AI fell back, wounded, staggering, but Nick did not let up, and this time it was Karr who was pursued.

His driver lashed out at him again, and Karr recoiled in agony, throwing up defences, backtracking, not daring to strike out in fear of hurting his partner in his fragility, but not able to withstand the assault. He cried out, calling his driver’s name in desperation, pleading, but the man kept coming.

He was vaguely aware of accessing his peripheral systems for just a fleeting moment in his scramble for a way out, but there was no more escape for Karr than there had been for Nicholas.

And as his driver raged and lashed out, Karr could do little but cringe and attempt to block his partner with his failing strength.

The blue fury bore down on him, the world tilted, shuddering, and then dissolved into shards of white.

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

Alex had taken to periodically staring out of the window. Nicholas had shown no sign of waking in the three days she had been here. The machines around him continued to click and whirr, spouting data on his condition, so it was easy the miss the subtle movements of the patient on the bed when he did finally make a break for consciousness.

But she didn’t miss the scream.

Alex spun to find Nick sitting up in bed clutching his head, the strangled remnants of his cry still tumbling from his lips.

“Nick?!”

She moved towards him, but didn’t get too close. She knew from experience that a disorientated Nick was a dangerous Nick. Reflexes didn’t require conscious intervention.

He didn’t respond to her voice, his features twisted in an expression of pain and fear. He shuddered and words fell from his lips.

“No! Get away. Leave me alone!”

She attempted to reach for the call button, but all the tubes and wires attached to Nick were tangled up in the struggling man. A lone machine began to screech warnings.

“Nick!”

His head shot up and for a moment he stared, his pale blue eyes boring into her. Recognition? No. Fear washed over her. Threat. She backed away.

She needn’t have, for the moment snapped, his eyes shutting in a cringe of pain before his body slumped sideways and he fell off the bed. Various wires and an IV followed him down, his legs tangled in bed covers.

The hospital staff chose that moment to arrive, a nurse and two orderlies piling into the room, followed by the doctor on duty.

Nick writhed on the floor.

“Be careful.”

The orderly nearest her gave her a strange look before moving into assist. He really should have paid attention.

Because Nick fought back.

“Get away from me!”

One orderly received a kick to the stomach, the entire contents of his lungs pushed out in one great gush of air. The other received a wallop to the face. And as the nurse ran for further back up, the frantic man fought himself free and made a stumbling attempt for the door.

She couldn’t let him go.

So she tackled him as he turned, and threw him to the ground in a move he had taught her himself.

“Nicholas!” She pinned his legs, forcing him to face her. It was a risk. She was gambling on what little recognition he could conjure up and all indications so far pointed towards him having none.

His eyes snapped on to her and he hesitated.

“Nick, it’s Alex. You’re safe.”

He blinked, his dazed blue eyes clouding, and she knew she had lost. His gaze hardened.

A hypodermic needle appeared out of nowhere.

Nick didn’t see it, but he felt it.

“No!” He flung her off and she fell hard, her head hitting the leg of the hospital bed, the world breaking up into a dance of sparkling lights. “No! Leave me alone! Go away, g-“

She blinked attempting to straighten her eyesight out. A hand touched her shoulder, and she finally focussed on the face of the duty nurse. Behind the kindly woman, a limp Nick was being lifted off the floor.

“Are you okay?”

The voice was gentle, caring, and she snapped back to the face of the young nurse rubbing her shoulder. The sympathy on the girl’s face caused something to catch in her throat, and everything that had happened over the past three days came to a head and something in her cracked.

“No. No, I’m not.”

And then the tears came.

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

It was Kitt who saved him.

As his processors froze under the onslaught of his driver, a flash of golden white intervened between the angry blue and the tattered remains of himself. Kitt didn’t strike back, couldn’t throw up a shield in a processor that wasn’t his, but he could stand between the falling AI and his incoherent driver. He shuddered under the assault.

A moment later, Nick retreated.

A whimper echoed in the suddenly silent CPU.

<_Karr? I’m sorry. So sorry. A tendril of white reached out and scooped the crippled AI into an embrace.

Karr let himself be lifted. He was too shocked for thought, much less words. Too wounded to refuse.

Too lost.

He stared at Kitt, suddenly realising there was something different about his brother, something in the soft incandescence of his existence.

But behind the dazzling form of the other AI, at the very far end of Karr’s link with his driver, a faint blue light flickered, once again dormant, unconscious, and that caught his entire attention. He still longed for its touch, but now it was edged with fear. Fear for himself. Fear for Nick.

And fear for the future.

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

Kitt had returned to them, and Bonnie was forever grateful.

She knew it had something to do with Karr’s accident.

According to Devon, it seemed the Stealth had spontaneously burst into high speed and collided with the Semi. She doubted it was personal. The simple fact the incident had coincided with Nick’s initial return to consciousness two days ago led her to believe there was something involving the neural connection between the two that had caused the accident. Of course, Karr wasn’t talking.

And neither was Kitt.

She had gone down to visit the AI a couple of times, her worry over Michael combining with her worry for his partner. Justin had dropped everything at Devon’s call and hopped on a plane to Tuscon at a moment’s notice. He had spent the last several days operating out of the back of the Semi, patching up the hole in Kitt’s side….and attempting to get a response from the AI inside.

He had also offered his services to Karr, but whilst Kitt would open his hood without a word, in response to a simple request, Karr would do nothing of the sort.

Once the dark AI had regained his senses – assuming he had lost them in the first place – he simply spun his tyres in reverse until the Stealth unwedged itself from where it had come to rest under the side of the Semi, and pulled himself into a parking spot nearby. There was no visible damage to the car, unlike the trailer. Justin was considering resorting to using the MBS on the Mobile Unit. She thought he was getting a little perturbed at how many times he had had to reconstruct the semi-trailer since this was the second time Karr had mangled it. Though at least this time it had been an accident, and far less severe.

Though that could simply be a matter of opinion.

Silent and mourning.

Those were the words the mechanic had used to describe the two AIs.

She couldn’t help but use them to describe herself.

Nick had remained unconscious since the incident, at first sedated and now simply not responsive, and at the hospital’s demand, restrained. Alex had dropped by briefly, her eyes red-rimmed, and Bonnie had nearly lost it herself at the sight of her. The two women hadn’t said much to each other the entire time during this ordeal, but a simple look said everything. They both knew what the other was going through, and there was nothing to be done.

They both haunted the hospital, only retiring to a nearby motel when bodily kicked out by the staff. Devon appeared at odd occasions, his voice rough, sentences short, his accent stiffer than normal. He wasn’t coping well, she could tell, but she had nothing to spare for him. She didn’t even have enough for herself.

She knew Michael was dying. Every machine in the room with her told her so. His heart was beating, his lungs were breathing, but under the bandages, the neatly repaired injuries caused by the two bullets that had torn into him, he wasn’t there, the flat lines of the electroencephalograph told all.

Perhaps ‘dying’ wasn’t the correct word. Perhaps ‘dead’ was more accurate. But she couldn’t bring herself to the thought.

The paramedics had done everything they could. They had fought for Michael’s life, reviving him twice, stealing him from death, but it hadn’t been enough. At some point his body had lost contact with his mind and he just wasn’t there anymore.

Oxygen deprivation.

Brain death.

The machines were keeping him alive, and there was talk of pulling the switch.

But she couldn’t let them.

She and Nick were listed as Michael’s next of kin, and with Nick incapacitated, it was left to her to make the decision. She supposed that at one time Devon would have taken Nick’s place in that capacity, but she knew his name had been removed at Michael’s request not long after the incident with Jennifer, and while the two of them had reconciled the majority of their relationship, the total trust had never returned.

And probably never would.

She had taken to reading out loud to the unconscious man. Michael had never been much of a literary buff, but from time to time he had taken an interest in what she was reading, and since her voice masked out some of the depressing whirr and click of the machinery in the room, not to mention the old axiom of the effect of voice on unconscious patients, she kept it up. For the both of them.

It was better than staring at the EEG begging for a blip, tracing that one line that gave her all the hope she had. The only reason the doctors hadn’t demanded the removal of life support was that one line on the EEG that was baffling them. They didn’t know why everything else was flat-line, yet this one signal was showing faint response. Doctor D’Angelo had looked at her with poorly concealed suspicion as to its source, but Bonnie hadn’t said anything. While the other doctors were baffled, it gave Michael time.

And it gave her a sliver of fading hope. Even though she knew it wasn’t Michael who was generating the faint signal.

Because she had seen it before.

In the diagnostic bay in the Semi.

She put the book down on the bed covers for a moment, her elbows coming down on the bed, her head falling into her hands. The hiss of the ventilator took over her heartbeat.

Michael.

Please.

She squeezed her eyes shut, refusing to let herself down, refusing to believe she would never see that smart ass grin of his ever again. Her hand went to her shirt pocket, feeling the photo paper crumpled in the material; she held it to her heart. She had stared at it for hours today already, and it had long since helped her to feel better. It was beginning to just remind her of what she might have lost forever.

She reached for Michael’s hand, ignoring the numerous IVs, medical attachments, even the comlink she had demanded he should wear, and let herself feel the warmth of his skin. Letting him feel her presence.

“Bonnie?”

Her head shot up at the quiet intrusion. Devon stood in the doorway.

She straightened her back, wiping her face to create some resemblance of composure. She knew she failed miserably, but Devon looked how she felt anyway.

“I’m sorry to disturb.” He edged into the room, almost hesitant, his eyes darting between her and the unconscious man on the bed.

“No. No, that’s fine. Come in.” She took a deep breath.

“I’m afraid I have some bad news.” Something flickered in his eyes and Bonnie’s heart lurched, but she still never expected his next words.

“Nicholas is missing.”

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

FIN.