Chapter 12: Adapting to Circumstances

"Holy Shit, Cate, what the fuck did you do?" Gail demanded as she grabbed Alex, physically shoving Cate aside. She laid him out flat, checking his pulse, and then turned to the shocked onlookers.

"Georgia, put down the food. Now's no time to fuck around. Bring a soda, he's in no shape to eat anything at the moment."

Georgia jumped, quickly grabbed a Coke from the items Cate had set aside earlier.

"Is he going to be OK," Leanna asked anxiously.

"Hopefully. I have no idea what Cate was trying to prove, but what she did was incredibly stupid," she answered as she tried to dribble the soda into Alex's mouth while simultaneously holding him down. "She knows he has trouble, and she purposely set him up to fail just so she could prove a point."

"I wasn't proving a point," Cate answered in a quiet voice. "It was something I had to establi—"

"Face it," Gail hissed at her. "You fucked up. If you'd really been serious about this, you would have warned us."

"Should we call an ambulance?" Georgia asked.

Both Cate and Gail responded immediately.

"No," Gail insisted, loudly enough to drown out Cate's weaker but no less impassioned response. "They've never seen this before, and they'd try to keep him for hours and run every test under the sun. All he needs is to eat and rest, and he won't be able to do that while the EMTs are wrapping him up and transporting him. No outsiders," she insisted, just to ensure no one tried to call for help.

When Gail had laid out Alex on the bed, Betsy had gotten up and was now watching the proceedings. Everyone, even Betsy, had forgotten about Ally, but she sat up slowly, also concerned about what was happening to Alex.

"I've got to apologize to you both for this," Gail told them, noticing they were both moving around again. "Normally Alex is very loving and gentle, but for some reason when he isn't dealing with someone directly, he tends to go over to the dark side. Cate knew this, and she deliberately set you up."

"That's why I—"

"We don't want to hear it, Cate," Gail snapped. "OK, he's starting to come around a little. Hand me another Coke and get some cookies ready. Hopefully he'll be able to gum those. Shit, Cate, I feel like ... fuck, I don't know what would be a fit enough punishment for this."

Cate looked worried sick, standing away from everyone else, biting her lip and wringing her hands. She'd planned on making sure Alex didn't last any longer than he had in the past, but she didn't count on his being worse. This was the first time he'd lost consciousness or went into convulsions.

"I think she just wanted to make sure she wasn't hurting him," Leanna said, trying to intercede for Cate, who she could clearly see was upset about what she'd done.

"You knew about this?" Gail asked her accusingly.

"I ... I ... Yeah, I did. She told me why she'd been avoiding him. I hated to see the two of them at odds, but when she—"

"So you thought this little game of hers was worth risking his life?" Gail hissed. "Aren't the two of you happy enough that he's going to die soon, anyway? Did you think you needed to rush the process? Damn, there's so much he has yet to do and he only has so much time to do it. Don't you realize that without him all your new abilities won't help anyone? For all we know, your telepathy will stop the moment he dies. He—"

"Telepathy?" Betsy asked, sitting up a little straighter. Even Georgia became more alert when Gail accidentally revealed that little tidbit. Ally had already been advised of that particular ability the Seers shared.

"Never mind," Gail hissed, getting frustrated no one else was aiding Alex, even though she was fiercely watching over him, not allowing anyone else near him. "The fact is, many of his followers' abilities will possibly just dissolve, like so much smoke, once he passes away, and without anyone else with his abilities there will never be another of us activated or boosted. You'd piss that away just to satisfy your idle curiosity?"

Everyone shut up after that, and while Georgia continued to hand Gail whatever she needed no one else approached them. Cate shrank back, standing anxiously against the far wall, trying desperately to see how Alex was responding, but feeling too ashamed about what she'd done to him to venture any closer to him.

"Please, be OK," she whispered. "I'd die if anything happened to you."

Gail, overhearing her, swung around and stared at her, but Alex was responding by then and was looking for more food, so she couldn't glare at her for long.

"All right," Leanna responded calmly, which was shocking to hear in the current context. "Shouting isn't going to help anyone, and it's only likely to upset Alex once he gets his senses back. Let's just focus on helping him recover."

Leanna seemed to assume command after that. "Betsy, get a cold wet cloth and I'll clean him off. Hopefully that'll bring him around a little quicker. Ally, get some ice. Cate, you'd better stay away, otherwise Gail is likely to punch you out."

Everyone started to move now that they finally had something they could do. Cate walked around so she was out of the way but could still observe how Alex was faring. Alex seemed to be trying to say something, but Gail was so intent on feeding him she wasn't noticing.

"I think he wants something," Cate cautiously mentioned. Gail turned and stared hard at her, but Leanna came to her rescue again.

"She's right. He's trying to say something." So Gail held off. Alex managed, with some difficulty, to lean up. He reached out and held his hand out to Cate, palm up, silently asking for her. Seeing that, she ran to him and threw herself beside him, being sure not to interfere with Gail's attempt to feed him. Once she was there, holding his hand, he returned his attention to eating again, but his actions affected Gail, who no longer glared so pointedly at her. She wasn't ready to forgive her yet, after all, Gail was still feeling angry, frustrated and betrayed, no longer knowing who she could trust in taking care of Alex. She'd take a while before she could trust Cate again, but she knew better than to go against Alex.

Gail hadn't been there for Alex three separate times, and now the one threat to his life had come from someone he trusted more than anyone else. Gail took that as a personal betrayal, feeling like Caesar's guards must have, no longer knowing where to look for the next attack to come from. She felt badly enough that she'd been unable to protect him from the shooting in Dallas, or the robbery here in Oklahoma, but this had been more than that. He'd been set up and injured by a trusted companion who should have known better, and while the other threats were something she couldn't avoid, this one felt personal to her.

Although Alex responded and seemed to get better, he was too tired to say anything, and after the initial excitement was over quickly fell asleep. The other girls were concerned with whether it was safe for him to sleep then, fearing possible undetected brain damage given his earlier seizures, but Cate assured them he needed rest more than anything else, although they'd wake him in a while to feed him again. Gail backed off, letting Cate do her job, which was to advise everyone on Alex's abilities and vulnerabilities, though she still watched Cate suspiciously. They both knew they'd be having a talk soon but neither one was ready to do it in front of a bunch of impressionable new followers.

The new girls were too worried about Alex to go anywhere, so they decided to camp out. Gail assumed control of watching over Alex, so she sent Cate to sleep on the other bed in the connecting room with the other girls. Georgia had to run home to change, but Gail suggested she not come back, fearing it would alert the hotel staff she was up to something. She assured her they'd call, and Cate took her information so they could do that. Alex slept between Gail and Leanna, curling up into a fetal position, looking to the two of them like a glowing cherub, despite his size. They both nuzzled him, but gave him plenty of room so he'd have no problems breathing or getting up if he needed. As much as they fought it, they each drifted off to sleep. Cate the last one, her cheeks streaked with dried tears no one saw her shedding, as she worried about what she'd almost done to her brother. Her last thoughts, before she fell asleep were that maybe she should separate herself from him, lest she do something even worse to him.

"OK, Alex, you need to get up so we'll know if you're OK or not," Gail warned him. "Plus you need to eat again."

Alex groaned as he rolled over and opened his eyes. "As much as I hate getting up, food does sound good. Man, what truck ran over me last night?"

"The one your sister was driving," Gail replied, casting a steely glance at Cate's room. However she hadn't come in yet, so she missed it.

"What? Mellissa drove all the way out here just to sideswipe me?" Alex asked. Gail was about to respond when she noticed Alex grinning, or rather she noticed his enjoyment of her reaction in his aura. Sometimes it was difficult to catch subtle teasing when you couldn't actually see someone's face.

"So what's for breakfast?" he asked.

"Betsy and Ally are fixing you a starch filled meal of blueberry and banana pancakes. We want you to eat before you attempt showering, since we're not sure we can trust you to stand up at this point."

"Man, newly abused and impregnated followers are the best," Alex teased as he climbed out of bed. "No one else ever makes me pancakes."

"Hey, you can buy me pancakes whenever your little heart desires," Gail assured him. "But pancakes aren't in my job description."

"Cate?" Alex called out, although he had to hold his head immediately after, since it hurt so much for him to yell in his current condition.

"Yeah?" she cautiously asked, peeking around the door connecting the two rooms.

"Could someone finally explain what last night was all about, seems I was having trouble following the conversation, what with the convulsions and all?"

"It seems Cate instigated the whole thing, pushing you to overextend yourself so she could assure herself she wasn't making you sick," Gail explained. It was clear she still wasn't happy with her, even though she wasn't going to say anything to her directly after Alex had come to her defense the previous night.

Alex turned to Cate, trying to study her with only one eye as he shut the other to keep the light from bothering his headache. "What's up with that? Whoever put that crazy idea in your head?"

"It's something that Becky brought up. She mentioned it to the girls in Carbondale, and they mentioned it to me the other day when we spoke to them. But I couldn't speak with Becky until yesterday, and by then I was already committed."

"So Becky asked you to run over me with a semi?" Alex asked, purposely misunderstanding her.

"No, she proposed that since I've been soaking up your energy since we started ... uh, fooling around, that maybe I was doing more than just absorbing the extraneous overflow. That maybe I was acting as a sponge, actively soaking up the energy you needed and thus actively making you sicker."

"And you believed this cockamamie idea?" Alex asked her seriously.

"Hell, Alex, it seemed like a legitimate idea. After all, you've only been having episodes since we got involved. And I am the most consistent figure in your life. That's why I've been avoiding you lately, I had to see what effect I was having on you. Unfortunately, there was no way to tell with you just wandering around like normal, so I needed to stress you out to see if you reacted any differently than you normally did."

"And what did my reaction last night tell you?" Alex asked simply.

"That it was a stupid idea and I never should have paid attention to it?" Cate replied sheepishly.

"That's right. You aren't draining anyone's energy. If you'd thought to ask someone like Gail, they'd have told you they'd have been able to have see if you had more BCM in you after sleeping with me than you normally do."

"Uh, Alex... ?" Gail said, interrupting him, but Alex just waved her off.

"Even if you have a small amount more, the fact is that the human body can only hold so much of this, and that's why I continually cast off so much. If you pick up some of it, it doesn't impact me. It's stuff my body has already gotten rid of. What's been hurting me is how hard my body has to work in getting rid of it."

"I understand that now, and I was pretty certain of it before, but I just had to be sure," Cate told him.

"So what would you have done if you'd been playing a role in making me sicker? Gone off to live in Siberia or something?"

"If I needed to; yes. Your health and what you can accomplish are vitally important. If I was negatively impacting you I was willing to step aside, but I wanted to be sure before I took that step."

"From now on, discuss any stupid ideas with me before you decide to back a truck up over me, OK?" Alex asked. Cate nodded, and that was enough for Alex.

"All right, now does anyone have any pancakes before I continue what I started last night but never got a chance to finish? After all, I'd like to make up for how I acted."

"Sorry, but we each decided you aren't going to strain yourself any more until you've recovered," Leanna informed him. "A little excitement isn't worth risking your health, even if it does involve melting our minds."

"Frankly, Ally and I couldn't go again even if the others would let us," Betsy told him as she poked her head around the corner. "You kind of wore us out. We've had some wild sex before, but nothing like that."

"Again, I'm sorry," Alex tried to tell her.

"Don't worry," she hurried to assure him. "It wasn't your fault."

"No, it wasn't," Gail agreed, looking pointedly at Cate.

"All right, getting off of that topic, what else is going on today? What happened with you yesterday, Gail?"

"Ah, the presentation of the key to the city went well, though you can rest assured that's the last time I'll be doing that. The thing you'll want to know about, though, is that I talked to a bunch of the other Seers and asked them to spread the word to everyone in each of your communities. At the end of my little presentation I announced we were accepting donations for the girls injured in the attack, and before anyone could respond our people from all over the country did. Your people called in a lot of favors from family and friends to ensure the contributions couldn't be traced back to your communities."

"So Haley and Kayla's hospital bills are covered?" Alex asked.

"You got it. We covered it ourselves, and it can't be traced back to you."

"That's good, I was worried about them and I wanted to help them somehow."

"Believe me, they both know that, but they were both adamant you not tip your hand after what happened."

"Ha, well my keeping a low profile didn't do much good," Alex informed her.

"Yeah, the girls described what happened in a little more detail this morning. I was planning on visiting the owner of the jewelry store, but it seems that Leanna beat me to it."

"What do you mean?" Alex asked.

"René Mizrachi is stopping by the room for a personal sales call," Leanna informed him. "When I told him we had some questions for him and that you'd never gotten a chance to make your purchases, he told me he was taking the morning off just to come and take care of you himself."

"Are you sure that's—"

"Don't worry about it, Alex," Leanna assured him. "I briefly outlined your objections, and he understood. All sales will be complimentary, or he'll accept cash if you insist, so there won't be any paper trails connecting you to the robbery. Plus Gail can ask him whatever she wants to in the privacy of your room."

"Well I'm glad you people can watch my ass when I'm out of it. Anything else I missed?"

"That seems to be about it," Gail informed him. "Though Leanna and I discussed another issue. She thinks you should strike while the iron's hot, as it were."

"Yeah," Leanna answered, as Ally and Betsy brought in pancakes and syrup for everyone, along with fresh coffee and orange juice, "you've got a great opportunity to expand your operation here and to reach out to the public at large. It seems most people are responding positively to you. If you ever want to make more of a public outreach without exposing yourself, now would be the time to do it."

"You know, that makes a lot of sense. Give me a little while to consider it, but I think I've got something else to address right now. Gail's story gave me an idea," Alex told them as they all noticed his eyes glaze over, even as he continued eating.

'Hey, robber girl? Where are you?'

'Jeez! Is that you, Angel?' she responded, clearly unnerved by being spoken to from on high.

'Don't be so upset, my speaking to you this way isn't as miraculous as it seems. Not to me at least, but that's neither here nor there. Now answer the question.'

'Right now I'm lying low. Both Mike and I are trying to attract as little attention as we can.'

'Ah, so Mike would be the guy who talked you into this little fiasco?' Alex guessed.

'Yeah. He still can't figure out what came over me, or what happened to him.'

'Well, I can't be responsible for him. If he didn't learn anything from the encounter, then there's probably no help for him. However, I'm reaching an olive branch out to you, and a way for you to turn your life around. Can you get to, hold on a second... 'Alex paused as he asked the other people at the table for the name of the city park nearby. 'Yeah, can you get to Myriad Botanical Gardens this morning, say around 10:00?'

'Yeah, I should be able to, ' she answered, not even bothering to ask why.

'Good, be there. But there are some conditions, this offer at redemption is for you only. Don't bring Mike along unless you're sure he's turned a corner and can be trusted not to screw up again. If you think he can, then it's on you if he screws up, but in either case, I want him not to interfere with anything. Understood?'

'Yes, sir. I understand perfectly, ' she answered, ready for whatever out he was offering.

'OK, when you get there, do NOT approach me under any circumstances. Do you understand that? I don't want to jeopardize the trust the people of this city are holding me in now by being associated with the people responsible for the robbery I broke up. When you get there, just call out to me telepathically like I am with you. I'll hear you and I'll tell you what to do then. OK?'

'Yes, sir, I understand. Show up at the Myriad Botanical Gardens downtown and wait for you, but don't approach or respond to you in any way. Should I come to the street entrance, the park entrance or what?'

'Hell, I don't know. I don't know the city at all. How about if we meet across from the big convention center across the street from there?'

'That would be the Cox Center. If I can, I assume you want this to be inconspicuous, so how about if we meet by the Outdoor Skating Rink. It's right beside the Botanical Gardens, there should be plenty of people, but it won't be so crowded there will be a lot of people watching us.'

'That sounds good. I'll see you then. Or not, since I probably won't acknowledge you. Whatever you do, don't be late because I won't wait for you, and don't let Mike screw this up for you.'

'I won't, sir, and thank you for giving me this chance. I've been worried sick about how to get out of this mess, and I knew Mike's idea was terrible, but I couldn't see any alternative.'

'Well, you have one now. Just watch yourself and don't screw it up. I'll talk to you in the park, but before I go, just what the hell is your name?'

'Oh, I'm sorry, my name is Stacie, Stacie Po—'

'That's OK, right now the less I know the better it is. I just don't like having to refer to you as robber girl. Anyway, I'm expecting you to show up, ' and with that Alex ended the conversation.

"And what was that about?" Gail asked when they noticed he'd finished whatever he'd been doing. She had a feeling she should be aware of whatever he was planning, especially since he may not have recovered as much as he thought he had yet.

"I've got a few things planned today which should help a number of people, and all I'll have to do is take a little stroll through the park," he answered, giving them no further information.

"So girls, don't you have work today?" he asked.

"We were going to call in sick today," Betsy answered for her and Ally.

"Don't. Go ahead and head in. We'll be busy this afternoon, but we can meet at the club this evening."

"I've got people opening the bar for me," Leanna told him. "I can go in whenever."

"Good, I need the phone number of a good hard working local reporter," Alex answered with a gleam in his eye.

René was very helpful, anxious to pay Alex back in any way he could, but still being respectful enough to not overstep his bounds. Alex took him aside and told him what he was looking for, and why, and René opened his case of wares on the hotel room's writing desk where he showed Alex several different things he thought might be suitable. Alex examined several of them, but eventually said he liked his original idea better, asking René if he could manage that. René assured him he could, that he actually had some in stock and he'd bring them by later. He and Alex shook over it, and Alex told him to bring them by Leanna's club that evening, since it would be better if no one observed the two of them together who didn't already know his story.

"That makes sense," René replied before remembering something else. "Oh, I also wanted to tell you I couldn't keep the video of the robbery out of the hands of the police. I'm required to keep video surveillance both by my insurance company and also by the Jeweler's Association. After all, they don't want jewelry thieves wandering around anymore than anyone else does. But don't worry, I discussed the matter with the police, detailing why you're anxious to avoid being identified. They said they'd rather interview you personally, but since I didn't actually know you and they had your fingerprints you left behind for them, that should be enough. They didn't think they'd need your testimony to investigate the crime, since you didn't seem to have been involved with it. They also stated they weren't going to make a big deal of it publicly, since they weren't anxious to spread news about this type of crime anyway."

"Well, thanks for that. That's all I need is my name being exposed and being permanently tied into this Angel business. It's still going to hang over me that they could choose to release my photo anytime they choose to, though, but I guess you couldn't control that."

"Oh, I don't think you need to worry about that," René replied. "I did mention suing them if the information was released. The Police Department would get nothing out of releasing it, and it would hurt my business if it was learned I was responsible for exposing the very person who'd stopped the robbery. I think we have an 'understanding' between us."