Brute wasn't quite so brutish with the cuffs on. More helpless, really. Cafas felt bad for him, in a small sort of way. He really hoped Maya wasn't getting shocked too. Oh damn!

"Ma..."

"Make sure the ambulance is on its way at least?"

Cafas immediately wished he was back getting the life kicked out of him. Partly because the adrenaline was wearing off and the pain seeping in. Mostly the amount of trouble he was in. Maybe the earth could be convinced to swallow him whole? He fumbled for his communicator as more and more of the injuries started to be felt.

"Dispatch, is there an ambulance en-route to the robbery at Tiffany's?"

"Kshay agai ksht you're breaking up"

Cafas gave the communicator a hard whack. It probably didn't help but it made him feel better. Maybe better was the wrong word. He added his hand to a list of places he needed DocProf to heal.

"I said, is an ambulance en-rout to Tiffany's?"

"Kshhhhhhhhhoger, ETA 5 minutes."

"Thanks dispatch."

Did he sound slurred? Probably. He felt slurred. His world was looking a lot like someone had thrown paint thinner on the oil-painting of his vision. Gravity wasn't quite working either. How hard had that hit to the head been? He tried to shake it off to no avail.

Taylor, your wisdom is non-applicable to my situation...

How many new bots were there? Surely enough that they didn't need his help any more. Really, Maya had done a lot more than him in the way of constructive work. He'd mostly just been an implement to damage display cabinets and police hardware. The bots took Brute into custody. By the time the cuffs were disarmed he had no fight left in him.

There was a tug at his arm. It felt like that was only bruised. Small mercies.

"We're leaving as soon as they unload the gurney and before they think to test your blood alcohol levels."

"Yeah... Okay. Can you get the bit of my sword out of the ceiling please? I mean, if you can do that. I don't know..." He allowed himself to be led outside. He sat on the curb while Brute was dragged outside by the bots. He felt like he was on the edge of dead. There wasn't much in it, that was for sure.

Those robots... Why do they need us?

Cafas had a request. Ghost frowned, but she wasn't about to say no. She never said no to anybody, why would she start now?

"Hey." She put her hands on either side of his face and tipped his eyes up toward hers. Cafas was starting to look a little glazed. She was noticing how hard he'd taken some of those hits now. Not like it hadn't been at least somewhat his fault for responding while in that kind of state, but... "I'm gonna get you home to the Doc, okay? Just hang in there."

Did he fix drunk? Based on what she'd seen with Sam and the blood clotting stuff, Ghost's guess was no. She sighed and let him go so that she could find the dang sword.

Up close, the damage to the Knight was really impressive. Ghost touched the entry point and the goo that was seeping out slowly. Yuck. Eventually she ducked down to look through the hole and gauge where in the ceiling the projectile may have gone.

She ghosted and followed its path deep into the ceiling. Maybe she couldn't have handled the bot on her own. Maybe he'd been right to step in. She didn't do this kind of damage, as a general rule.

She didn't typically take much damage either.

Whatever. Ghost retrieved the metal and by the time she was solid, yet again, the ambulance was on site. Cafas had his own paramedic, even.

Hooo boy.

"Excuse me." She smiled to the woman talking to Cafas. The uniformed paramedic was pretty. He could do worse, but... he shouldn't do any public-facing talking today. Maya sat next to Cafas and very carefully put her arm around him. With her free hand, she pressed the metal glob into Cafas' hand. "Thank you for your support, but we've got a healer on staff. The people inside are who'll need you most now."

With that she inhaled and started to pull Cafas into incorporeality.

"Hey." Cafas winced as she touched his face. He tried to play it off, but he was pretty certain something there was fractured. "I'm gonna get you home to the Doc, okay? Just hang in there." He nodded like he actually had any control over that.

By the time the paramedics arrived Cafas had finally calmed down. Between trips into some ethereal realm of mental fog, he tried to assess his injuries. They were bad for sure. Not life threatening as best he could tell. He certainly couldn't have taken much more.

A shadow crossed in front of his vision. Cafas would have tried to look at it, but he was very busy "hanging in there" as it were.

"Hey, I'm Ashley, I'm a paramedic. What's your name?"

He gave it a moment of thought. It was becoming increasingly difficult to focus on anything past the pain. "Cafas Johnson."

"Alright Cafas, I'm going to ask you some questions, okay?"

"Yeah" Luckily that didn't take much thinking. Of course she could ask. If she wanted answers, that may be more tricky.

"Okay, do you know where you are?"

"... I think Tiffany's?" He hadn't moved too far right? Had Maya ghosted him off somewhere else? If she had, he hadn't noticed. Ashley was wiping his face with what felt like a wash-cloth. The stinging suggested an antiseptic.

"Yep, okay. Can you tell me where you hurt?"

Cafas laughed a little, mirthlessly. He shouldn't have, it hurt really badly. He'd broken several ribs there, dislocated some more by the feeling. "Everywhere. Face and chest, back and hand." Good thing he'd already been trying to determine that. Ashley seemed calm enough, so he couldn't be too badly off right?

"Excuse me."

The arm around him felt nice. He hadn't been aware that he could still feel nice things. The pressure was nigh nonexistent. That really helped. What was left of his sword blade was pressed into his hands. Given how hard and tough he'd made it, its current state spoke highly of the bots.

"Thank you for your support, but we've got a healer on staff. The people inside are who'll need you most now."

"Thanks Ashley."

She didn't seem too annoyed from her knees. Cafas would have looked at her face, but his eyes were no longer functional. He was oddly aware of his surroundings. They seemed even hazier than before. Ashley was already moving. How did he know? Ghost's weird vision was hard.

"Maya... I think I nearly died in there."

> "Maya... I think I nearly died in there."

"I have a lot of words to say about that, but for right I think I'm going to settle on 'I would never let that happen if it is within my power to stop it.'" And she had to keep herself from going on before the slow simmering lecture boiled over into this fragile moment. He was hurt. She didn't want him to hurt so she was taking him home to see the doc. DocProf was a faster solution than any Ashley.

So she focused on that. It was easier going back to a familiar place than finding a new one. They may have made record time.

"DocProf?" Ghost tapped at the bell at the clinic with what appeared to be a misty tendril in this form. To a human eye, it would be nothing but air. The sound resonated out as visual ripples in this incorporeal negative space, as did her voice, and the footsteps that preceded the vague mass of a man in a long coat.

"Who is it? Can you not drop them this time?"

Dropping was easiest, but... well, this was an instance where Ghost agreed. "It's Cafas. He's... really banged up." If her voice sounded watery that was because she was trying very, very hard to not be upset right now as she carefully extricated herself from her friend. Ghost changed from holding his body to simply holding his hand.

She didn't usually take the time to reconstruct her friends, but this time she did. Cafas settled onto his feet slowly as she always did, one pound at a time. Once the only thing left to incorporeality was the place that their hands linked, she let go and coiled her body up into a loose cloud. She was afraid to go solid again so soon. So many transitions couldn't be good. She just needed to stick it out in one form for a while.

Totally not avoiding the reality of the situation or anything.

"Uhm. Is it bad?"

"I have a lot of words to say about that, but for right I think I'm going to settle on 'I would never let that happen if it is within my power to stop it.'"

Cafas didn't know if he was able to nod in this form, but he settled on trying. He wasn't entirely sure he wanted to hear a lot of words. He wasn't even sure he could process them. Being conscious was hard enough work.

Wonder what happened to my shield.

"DocProf?"

Oh, were they home? Cafas had barely noticed the time pass. It was all weird and blurry to him. He tried looking around. It mostly just made him feel ill. Still, there was something that seemed a little like DocProf here.

"Who is it? Can you not drop them this time?"

Oh god please don't drop me...

"It's Cafas. He's... really banged up."

Seemed like a bit of an understatement to Cafas. It seemed even more of an understatement as he came back into physical form. He hadn't realised how much being air had numbed the pain. He was acutely aware of it now. It was the most he could do to make it to a gurney before collapsing. Collapsing was a mistake. It hurt badly. Something moved that really shouldn't have. "Guh!" the sand was a little less than traditionally manly.

"Uhm. Is it bad?"

"It certainly doesn't look good." DocProf approached Cafas and extended a hand. A familiar warmth spread over Cafas. DocProf did a diagnostic once over of Cafas. It took quite a long time, at least by Cafas' reckoning. When he finished, the old man sighed heavily. "Eight broken ribs, three dislocated. Fractured cheekbone and eye socket. Fractured second and third metacarpals in his right hand. Extensive bruising to other bones. Superficial cuts all over, as well as muscular and skin bruising. That he isn't bleeding internally is a happy surprise. This will take some time."

The Doc wasted no time getting to work. The relief Cafas felt was beyond words. He could have cried. He tried very hard not to.

He was making sounds Maya had never heard before. Should she go solid to see? Should she leave? Hangover cure! She could go make one of those. Or tea? Tea could soothe a lot of hurt, assuming he could sit up and drink it.


DocProf rattled off his report and the list was pretty bad. She hadn't noticed. Did she not pay enough attention? Was it the state changing? She had been so irritated at him about the booze, worried about the PR after she'd generated so much bad press for the X's, and the bot...


"That Knight was defective because it went through the wall first, right? " That was a safe topic and one they needed to hash out before she submitted something official.

DocProf grunted as a memory clearly affected him on visceral level. "Ghost, I can't breathe when you're pressing in like that."


But she couldn't see if she didn't. He knew that. She backed off and debated going solid again.


"Sorry! Sorry. I'll go do the incident report or I don't know... Orange juice? I'll go get you both some OJ." That was what recovering bodies needed, right? Stamina recovery? Electrolytes? Yeah. She could go and be back before DocProf was done.

"That Knight was defective because it went through the wall first, right?"

"It was... Pretty... Banged up... When... We got there." If DocProf could work on his ribs, that'd be great. Cafas managed to grunt his reply without passing out. That was something. His head was starting to clear some. His face no longer hurt.

"Ghost, I can't breathe when you're pressing in like that."

"Sorry! Sorry. I'll go do the incident report or I don't know... Orange juice? I'll go get you both some OJ."

That was the best thing Cafas had heard all day. That probably said something about the sort of day he'd been having. Hopefully by the time she got back he wouldn't feel like a shattered mess. He had a feeling. A feeling that suggested he be back to mental acuity before Maya started telling him off.

Not that it's not deserved...

It took a few minutes before Cafas could breathe comfortably again. His neck felt like he could bend it properly again. He looked up at DocProf. Kindly Doc may be, but that glare told him that Maya may be the least of his worries.

"The next time someone brings you in, Mr. Johnson, you had better not smell of alcohol. Not when their life may have been depending on you. Do we have an understanding?"

That was... Probably perfectly fair. Cafas had been patched up by DocProf so much over the years, the man had every right to start putting stipulations on it. Cafas nodded and went back to laying down. His head was killing him. He wasn't entirely certain if he was concussed or if it was from overloading his power.

"So... Is Maya like that with everyone she brings in?" Not that he had any reason to want to know. Utterly conversational. Yup, casual as. Cafas suspected their coffee conversation was not going to have much of a good opportunity for the conversation he'd wanted to have. Not between all the stupid he had been.

Never know, right?

Okay. So talking was not the best thing right now. Ghost fretted all the way out the door. She brought herself to solidity slowly as she drifted until she could no longer both make forward progress and put her body back together.

Her head throbbed. Shifting two people, twice, was chore enough, but Cafas was massive and the Brute had been equally mind-bending to fit her power into. She'd nearly solidified and was simply standing tiredly in the hall when someone found her.

"Oh. There you are."

Maya blinked up at the pre-school teacher. The Mansion's youngest kids were all in her care and that meant Rowan. The X-man tried to arrange a smile on her face as she finished rebuilding herself. "It's been a while. Can I help you with something?"

"Well, I wanted to talk to you about Rowan's behavior at rest time... I mean, I don't know if now is a good time or not."

"It's fine. Uhm. Talk and walk?" Her head was swimming, actually. Throbbing and swimming. All on its own. Maya grabbed an incident form out of the plastic file holder outside of the shared office and trudged slowly toward the kitchen, listening as the teacher shared Rowan's most recent proclivity for protesting nap time.

"Ghost."

"Hmm?" The elemental had poured three cups of orange juice, drained one and was putting the empty cup away in the sink. She needed a pen. There was probably one in DocProf's office...


"Ghost. You're bleeding."

She looked down and... well. The teacher was right. She had quite a few scratches in her uniform and a piece of glass protruding from the back of her external oblique near her hip. It didn't look too deep. At the worst, it had hit her hip bone. Hard to see back there. She had been slammed into the ground. A ground littered with shrapnel and glass. It was no surprise.

"Headed to see DocProf. It's not a big deal." And it really wasn't. She hadn't even felt it.

"Hardcore."

Ghost eked out a smile at the joke and made some kind of promise to talk to Rowan later. She slipped a little in those darn heels Sam insisted on and the X-man had to readjust the glasses of OJ so she didn't spill before she puttered back to the nursing office, blank incident report under arm.

She delivered the orange juice to two very receptive mutants and took a seat after grabbing a pen. She leaned back with a sigh, probably too tired to even bother with the swimming letters on the page.

Feeling his body knit itself back together was something Cafas never got used to. The gentle golden light of DocProf's power washed over him, slowly from head to toe. It took several minutes, Cafas eventually had to flip onto his stomach. The process started again, slightly faster. He was a lot less injured on his back. His uniform was pretty much destroyed with all the cuts in it.

"There. Now, let's just refresh you on treating concussion..."

Cafas sat up to listen. He'd heard it all before, many times. Heck, he'd been in with Jude just that week. Mostly he just ended up marveling at how quickly DocProf could take someone from a broken wreck back to a perfectly functional wreck. His brain was still too fuzzy for the specifics of treating concussions. What he really felt like was that glass of juice. His energy levels were low after blasting half a sword through a robot.

Go figure.

Maya re-entered, juice in hand. Well, juice in cup. Cafas accepted the proffered cup with a smile. It was empty pretty soon after that. he glanced down at it sheepishly. He'd needed that more than he'd known. His body almost immediately requested another. He ignored it. He could have another drink with Maya. He wondered if the slight lifting of the fog in his brain was actually the juice, or simply placebo effect.

I could go a coffee I suppose... Or something carbonated and sugary.

DocProf took a much more measured sip before turning to Maya. "Now, Ghost, if it's alright I's like to heal you as well." He phrased it like she had an option, he intoned it like she did not. Even Cafas picked up on that. The metal manipulator frowned, giving Maya a once over. Maybe DocProf had noticed something Cafas had not. He sincerely hoped Maya was alright. Still, with DocProf right there, Cafas wasn't exactly worried.

She shouldn't have chugged that orange juice.

It was sitting funny in her stomach and that was the thing her brain kept straying back to. She was still trying to finish filling out the name field on the form when she realized that DocProf had been talking to her.

It sort of took a while to look up at him and once she had, she regretted her decision. He had the Doctor Look, a marginally more frightening version of the Mom Look, on his face. DocProf also had his hand out, presumably for the paper she'd been almost writing on. For a moment, she considered fighting him for it. She could hug it to her chest and never let it go.

But he was only trying to help. Maybe being a mother herself gave her the perspective. Ghost passed the paper over with no small amount of chagrin.

"Honestly." DocProf took the paper and went to set it on the front reception counter. "You X-men are all the same."

Maya started to stand, but something was caught between her uniform and the cloth of the chair. It tugged weirdly and provided more resistance than it should have. So she was surprised that once she stood and turned to look back, there was more than a single piece of glass there embedded into the chair and punctuated with a shock of red. Her back was a mess of small cuts and glass that had finally been given the time to bleed.

Going between states and staying incorporeal for so long, she hadn't given them a real chance to clot.

She was guided to a gurney of her own which felt pretty silly since nothing hurt. Extra embarrassing that she ended up face down.

"It's not a big deal." Right?

"Stay still, it's good that you don't feel too much these days because I'm going to have to pick all this glass out first."

Ghost tried to smooth her spandex skirt down, but she was laying on her hands.

"Stay still." Was what DocProf said, but his tone was the same as before. Honestly, you X-men are all the same.

"You X-men are all the same."

Cafas got to his feet unstably. His legs felt like they were going to co-operate a bit more than before. A few short steps and he'd snagged the form for himself. Pen in hand he began filling in the boxes. His vision was swimming a little still, but he was fairly confident it was both legible and mostly in the right spot.

"It's not a big deal."

Cafas took a glance up. Maya had a funny idea of not a big deal. That was a lot of blood. His eyes lingered while DocProf got to work, but watching the old man pull glass out of Maya wasn't as riveting as it had first seemed. Paperwork wasn't very interesting either, but it needed doing.

Okay... What exactly did happen. Maybe skip the drinking bit.

Cafas did his best to detail what he remembered. It was hazy. It wasn't his best penmanship either. He was done far too quickly to be complete. It's all he had though. Maya's would probably be better. It was probably not the most polite thing to steal Maya's report sheet.

"You got some asprin Doc? My head is killing me."

"It should be in the top drawer of the reception desk."

He found it quickly enough and set off to refill his cup. His balance was still off. He did his best not to stumble into anyone. It wasn't entirely successful. He left a couple of bloody marks on the wall where he stumbled into it. By the time he made the kitchen his head was pounding. Ducking past a pair of gawking teens Cafas yanked open the fridge.

He poured himself another glass of juice, downed the asprin, washed up his cup and headed back to the infirmary. Another stumble or two, but his energy levels and co-ordination were starting to pick back up. He grabbed Maya an incident report on the way back, dropped his own off, considered a drink.

No, that's enough for today...

He dropped the fresh sheet on the reception desk on his way in and had a lie-down on the gurney he'd recently vacated. Just until the room stopped spinning.

At some point she'd fallen asleep.

See? Totally not a big deal.

As Ghost sat up a few things became clear. First, her uniform had been stripped down off her back and was now bunched at her shoulders and front. Second, someone had thoughtfully placed a gown over her exposed skin. Third, she was cold. She didn't feel cold often so she had to be pretty cold to actually feel it.

Oh and her hair was a wreck.

Maya rubbed the sleep from her eyes. Probably time to go find DocProf. She could hear him talking in a low voice somewhere nearby in the nebulous beyond her little cot's privacy curtain.

She slid off the cot, fixed her uniform as best she could and left the gown on the bed, and then peeked around the curtain to see what was up.

Cafas finally got sick of being woken up around the third time. The room had stabilised in that time. His mouth was super dry though. His head still hurt, but his body had clearly processed the juice and the grog. His head felt relatively clear, if still somewhat sore.

"What time is it?"

"Three in the afternoon."

He didn't quite know what to do with that information. If it had been later he might have considered just going home to bed. It was too early for that though. The metal manipulator sat up with a groan. The gurney was about as comfortable as it looked. A quick stretch made him feel absolutely no better.

"How's Maya? That looked like a lot of glass."

"Ghost is sleeping. You are cleared to leave if you wish."

Cafas shook his head. He'd deal with the fallout of his drinking on duty as soon as possible. If that meant he got to speak to Maya about where they stood, all the better. He also had a pretty good idea of where he would end up if he left with no aim. He picked up his sword halves. He'd never broken the blade before. It felt like a betrayal. Maybe he'd fix it later.

"If I hit the Danger room, will you send her down when she wakes up?"

"If you are concussed again you run the risk of second impact syndrome, causing your brain to swell rapidly, potentially killing you. Do not make me break my oaths to stop you doing that."

Cafas sighed. Looked like he was going to sit there until Maya woke up.

DocProf wasn't normally one for gossip, so the question he asked next surprised Cafas more than a little.

"Is there something new between you and Ghost I should know about, as your doctor?"

It shocked him right into honesty.

"I hope so."

Wait, no! Damn it Cafas!

"I mean.. Uh, why do you ask? No... No I mean I hope so." Cafas sighed. He was doing that a lot recently. "I just don't know how to talk to her about it."

Were his eyes playing tricks on him, or had he caught movement out the corner of his eye?

"If you are concussed again you run the risk of second impact syndrome, causing your brain to swell rapidly, potentially killing you. Do not make me break my oaths to stop you doing that."

Maya had words about that too. She opened her mouth to say some of those when DocProf caught her eye.

"Is there something new between you and Ghost I should know about, as your doctor?"

What? Why would he—

>"I hope so."

Wait. What? A thrill of fear ran up her spine. He wanted what? What about…? He wasn’t thinking about all the facets here.

> "I mean.. Uh, why do you ask? No... No I mean I hope so. I just don't know how to talk to her about it."

He winked at her. DocProf winked. Like an actual wink. Maya shut her mouth because she was suddenly aware how the lower half of it was hanging open.

“I’ll let you two sort that out.”

That meddling old man! Maya had a lot of love in her heart for him, but at this moment, with her cheeks burning red and her uniform all but ruined, she hated him just a little bit.

”Uhm. I need a shower.” And a rock to hide under. DocProf had already made his exit, now it was high time she made hers.

Cafas really wanted to know why DocProf was being so shifty. The glancing away was suspicious to begin with, the smile doubly so. The wink really tipped him off that something was amiss. Cafas began to follow his eyeline to see what he was being shifty about.

“I’ll let you two sort that out.”

Cafas' eyes narrowed to a glare. A dangerous purple glint entered them. That cheeky son of a... DocProf was already gone though. Cafas would speak to him about that later. He debated quite how much DocProf's fate depended on Maya's reaction. He settled on "He owed the old man too much".

I suppose he has enough Karma credit to pull this sort of stuff on occasion.

”Uhm. I need a shower.”

Cafas was on his feet and moving. Who knew how long before he'd see er again after that. How long had it been with Calley? "Maya, wait!" Honestly she did need the shower. So did he. The blood was hardly flattering on either of them. "You... You really weren't meant to find out like that..." Cafas shot another glare after DocProf. His eye quickly returned to Maya, an embarrassed pleading in his expression. "Can we... Can we talk about this? Over coffee? Dinner? I don't know..." He made no move to physically block her retreat.

Oh sure, that'll work like a charm...