You might never be coming home (Zoe, Cai, Peter, others?)

[lightningseed.insanejournal.com]

Zoe took a taxi back to Cai's to pick him up. He didn't want to take the car today; he didn't trust himself to drive. Not after Zoe told him what they were going to be doing. They sat in the back of the taxi together and didn't touch and barely talked.

"It's going to be really bad, isn't it?" Cai asked, though he'd seen Peter's warning. Of course it was going to be bad.

"We might see something that can help," Zoe said, though she didn't sound hopeful. The day had drained all that out of her. It might come back, but she doubted it would be tonight. Tonight was just going to get worse and worse.

"Dom was at the doctors today," Cai said, after a couple of blocks of silence. Zoe turned to look at him, her attention a question. "He's looking really good," Cai said. "It's the quietest of heart murmurs."

"That's good," Zoe said.

Cai shook his head slowly. It wasn't that he didn't think it was good news; it was. But. "But there's still going to be a funeral," he said.

"You don't know that," Zoe was whispering. "When was the last time we had that vision?"

Cai shrugged, shaking his head again.

"Getting him to the doctor might have changed things enough."

"Maybe," said Cai.

They rode in silence the rest of the way to Peter's. It wasn't far.

Cai climbed out of the taxi and looked up at Peter's house, pulling his hands into his sleeves though it wasn't cold. Zoe paid the taxi and stood beside him for a moment. "Ready?" she asked.

"Ha ha ha," said Cai, but followed her up the driveway and into the house. Zoe let herself in, not wanting to announce herself by knocking, and made her way to Peter's office.

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[lightningseed.insanejournal.com]

Cai don't know how he moved so fast but as soon as Peter let go of his hands he was up, and found himself in the corner of Peter's office. Dizzy and sick and mirroring Danny's lack of ability to fight, he stumbled and braced himself against the wall, but eventually sank down to the floor on his knees. He kept his eyes painfully wide open, as if staring at the skirting board would help wash the images from behind his eyes.

Zoe stayed where she was on the floor, but slowly pulled her hands back toward her body and tucked them safely under her arms. The images crawled over her skin like Greg's hands, and his voice in the last images, telling Danny how good he was... that would stay in her head for a very long time. She didn't notice she was crying till her sob forced her to take a great breath and bought her fully back to herself.

Zoe struggled to stop crying, wiping away tears as soon as she felt them and fighting to keep her breathing even but they kept coming, sob after sob. Her previous crying session this afternoon seemed to have paved the way for this one, and she didn't have much strength left to contain herself with.