Scott found Angel first. A good thing, all considered. Angel wouldn't yell at him like Luz would. Angel would be gentle as he changed the bandages and checked the wounds (still closed) underneath.

And Angel would know that there was only so much he could do. Angel wouldn't argue when Scott decided that he'd been fussed over enough and that they should get back to Quinn.

Was Scott nudging Angel along a little faster? Perhaps.

Was Scott moving at a pace faster than was comfortable? Perhaps.

Would Quinn be exactly the way he had left her, peacefully sleeping off the drugs? Probably.

Probably wasn't good enough.

"Her hands were cold, we should get her a blanket. Here." Scott grabbed one as they walked past, pointing out which door was the right one to Angel when they got to it.

Sleeping. What was the difference between sleeping and a coma if there were no big mechanical apparatus to tell Zea about the brainwaves she was looking at?

Stupid machines. Giving her shortcuts and then ceasing to function without electricity. Damn electrical things.

Had to wait. If something was important, Zea would see, right? She was right here, sitting on the edge of the stretcher. She'd see, as long as she concentrated. Focused.

Well, Fixated, but that was no problem, either.

"---get her a blanket. Here."

Scott. Good friend. Her mother's pack. He should be here; that was good. Stranger. Didn't smell familiar. Zea had two options: chew his legs off up to the knee, or spend that energy focusing on her mother and just wait until he went away.

Reflexively--because she hadn't done it in the last fifteen seconds--Zea reached down to check her mother's wrist to monitor her pulse.

"Busy," Zea said, only half-attending to the fact that other people were present.

Angel moved in, taking over Quinn's wrist from Zea and checking her pulse, as well as her breathing. Really, there wasn't that much he could actually do.

Scott unfolded the blanket and placed it over Quinn's legs as best he could, with Angel and Zea up by her chest and head. The bandages over his knuckles pulled as he wrapped thick fingers around the bar at the foot of the bed, gripping it tight.

Angel tried to think about what was wrong. Tranquilizers, nerve stimulus supressors, her neurons weren't able to fire and tell the parts of her body what they should be doing. Too much and they'd affect more than higher consciousness, they'd also affect the subconscious procedures, like breathing and heartbeat. So try and strengthen the subconscious signals.

Zea had no idea what this person was doing. Scott brought him, so it must be okay. He'd just better not get in the way.

Vaguely Zea registered annoyance that Angel took Quinn's wrist from her, but simply let it go and continued focusing her attention where it should be. This was exhausting, but Kepler was right. Zea had gotten into lazy habits, simply turning her Gift off instead of dealing with it.

It was learn now or learn too late, so she might as well focus now.

A tentative, gentle push of power (he wasn't really capable of much more beside that) to help her along. Apparently it was too much though, and the precarious balance of chemical functions was tipped.

Angel sensed the stopping of Quinn's heart before she stopped breathing. And if there was something he could do well besides mend minor cuts and bruises, it was CPR.

It would have to do, because without steady power and with Dicen around, they'd stopped keeping the defibrillators ready to use.

They'd learned about rhythmic abdominal compression-CPR just before the Outbreak, and without the ability to easily deal with the blunt-trauma injuries that could occur from chest compressions, this was the best option for an older woman who probably had weaker bones, like Quinn Mazuo.

Angel started pumping.

Honestly, he didn't think it looked good. The chances of survival in a no-pulse situation were not high, even with a defib and life support machines. Without... well.

He'd just have to try.

-----

By the time five minutes were up (it felt like an eternity), blood was starting to bloom on the bandages across Scott's knuckles. He'd cracked the scabs.

Angel was trying, he really was. He'd tried to send a jolt of power to Quinn's heart, but he just didn't have the strength or the refinement of his Gift. But it didn't take long for damage to start, and even with artificial respiration, he estimated only a minute or two before permanent brain damage would set in.

And Quinn's heart refused to beat on its own, even once.

When Angel abandoned his station at Quinn's side, pulling her onto her back to start chest compressions, Zea knew exactly what she was looking at. She'd been in the labs. She'd seen attempts at resuscitation, when anybody bothered.

She knew. She thought her own heart was stopping. Zea certainly couldn't breathe. This was it. This was her mom but this was it for her. She knew it the way she knew that her familiar was old, the way that she knew when her Phase was coming on, the way she knew which way gravity pulled. She just knew it.

Zea said nothing. There was nothing to say. There was no patience, only the absolute ringing peak of silent panic in the air between her and Scott. Now or never. Pay attention. She held up one finger without thinking, having no other way to communicate that he should stay back. Pay attention. Angel was doing what Angel was going to do, and that was good, because it meant that Zea could pay attention.

There was nobody who could do anything. Nobody. It was Quinn and God now, and Zea. God wasn't going to do anything, either. What was one woman to God? What was Zea's mother when the whole world was less than a spark in his eye? God wasn't going to do anything.

It was Quinn and Zea.

Slowly, she reached out with one hand, and laid her fingertips carefully on Quinn's throat, out of the way of the diligent healer. It didn't matter what he did right now, it mattered what he did after. After... after what?

After Zea did whatever it was she had been put in this room to do.

She inhaled, slowly, tasting the air of the room and the empty space beneath the cracks in the daylight, down close to the darkness where the dead whispered at her even now, wondering what she was on about, what was taking all of her attention away. There, where they were. That was where she had to be. There was no room for them.

Zea exhaled, leaving a moment of peace where that world could just... be. Inhaled, took the pressure into her lungs, and then pressed down, forcing her will like a long, slow shockwave through her mother, through the room, through their floor and the floors beneath and above, out into the open air and forever until there was nothing but empty space. She breathed herself down into it, barrelling through those slim and fading creatures who still dwelled there, blasting them backward, pressing them to its edges. Here was her circle, where there was nothing but Zea, and those things which were permitted within her.

Nothing but Zea and her mother. With her eyes she saw a fine, delicate mist rising between her fingers. Angel was still working. The fog expanding from her mother's form was lit from outside, by a light no one else could see, by a light that came from the searing inferno that was the center of Zea's power. Zea could touch them; she could always touch them. She could command them; she had always been able to command them. Zea could rule them, and nothing could happen within her that she did not command.

To Scott and Angel's eyes, Zea stood quietly with one hand on her mother's skin, and the other still holding that cautionary gesture, holding back questions or interference. Her eyes widened, and her jaw dropped as she drew in a great, slow breath. The hand held up drifted closer, and then quickly grabbed the volunteer healer and shoved him bodily off of Quinn Simon's still form. Zea's fingers curled, digging deep into something no one else could see. Zea dragged it slowly through the air and down toward her mother, her eyes narrowed and teeth bared with the ferocity of her effort.

Just what the hell they were watching, they could only guess. After all that Scott had seen, however, it probably wouldn't be a bad guess.

Finally her palms were both pressed against Quinn's shoulders, as though she were trying to hold the woman down on the stretcher. Never mind that she was clearly not going anywhere. Zea knew. That was just her body. Zea spoke, her whisper the first words spoken into the great void she had created around herself, the first expression of will to shape that space born from what this moment demanded of her.

To those in the room, the words were a whisper, hoarse with desperate effort. To those with the right ears to hear, to those lingering dead and the Necromancers who listened to what only the dead could hear, they rolled like thunder and filled the circle to its edge.

"Look through your eyes."

The thunder stilled, the roiling mass calming again. Zea would be obeyed. The only power here was hers and she would be obeyed.

"Look. Through. Your eyes."

Something about the eyes. It had always been the eyes, that boundary between being within the body and being outside it. They were how Zea had reclaimed her own body countless times, because she knew her own eyes and knew what view belonged to her. It had always been the eyes.

Zea reached up and carefully placed her thumbs on her mother's eyelids, opening her eyes to the ceiling. The writhing, screaming mass beneath Zea's hands coalesced, settled, seemed to click back where it belonged. She was Zea Helena Mazuo, and she would be obeyed.

"Now work. You." She briefly looked up to Angel, the man she had so rudely shoved away, acknowledging him directly for the first time. "Again. Now."

They didn't know. They were still afraid, and sad, and... well, helpless. They didn't know what Zea knew. They didn't know who cut the threads and who commanded they remain to be re-woven. They didn't know that it was Zea. That it had always been Zea. All along.

The act of addressing someone outside her effective realm caused something to slip sideways. Harder to hold. The certainty was cracking, the command was fading from her memory, and... the silence... was being filled with anger. "Quickly. Please, I don't have much longer..."

Angel was starting to give up. One two three -- it had been six minutes. Not even a flutter from Quinn's heart. But Scott was staring and as he started to slow down, the Alpha growled. So Angel kept going.

Don't you dare, Quinn. Don't you leave. He needed her. She was his support, his friend, she was somebody he had left and dammit he needed her to stay.

Scott's eyes were riveted to Quinn, but when Zea finally moved he noticed it. Particularly when she shoved Angel out of the way.

The fingers, the grabbing, the dragging...

Necromancers couldn't do that.

Could they?

She'd said something about it.

Scott hadn't ever actually met one that could. Or claimed that they could.

But what did it matter, if Zea could do it then Quinn would still be here so that made it good.

The room was filled with a hollow silence as they watched. Scott's hands might as well have been welded to the bar he was gripping, and Angel was behind Zea, looking at them both, entirely unsure as to what was going on, much less what he should be doing.

"Now work. You." She briefly looked up to Angel, acknowledging him directly for the first time. "Again. Now."

"But--"

"Do it," Scott pushed, his voice rough, his words forced out.

Angel put his palms against Quinn's abdomen again and started again, trying one more time with a push of Healing.

There. A flutter. Faint, and then her heart started, weakly following the rhythm he was setting.

Quinn's body rose as she gasped for breath.

Angel stopped, his eyes wide and his mouth dropped open in shock. That shouldn't have worked. What did this woman do?

"Quinn."

Scott pushed him aside, reaching for Quinn and grabbing her and wrapping his arms around her, holding her to him tight while his wounds and tired muscles screamed at him.

He dragged his mouth roughly across Quinn's forehead, pressing his lips to the dry, thin skin. His beard caught on the strands of dirty hair, tangling them as he wordlessly kissed her brow and tried not to crush her in his arms.

All of his stitches pulled tight. Everything hurt. His eyes stung sharply and ached with the unfallen tears that had filled them. But his heart hurt most of all; fresh and painful, like a blade stabbed in had been removed and the wound was bleeding freely.

"Dammit woman," he eventually rumbled against her skin, fierce and hoarse.

He didn't even know if she was actually awake.

But she was breathing.

"Don't you do that to us," to me, "again."

When Angel stepped forward to take over, Zea watched for another few moments, waiting for the others to see what she knew was coming.

Bodies and spirits were complicated. Sometimes the body affected the spirit. Injuries, trauma, death itself even. Sometimes the spirit affected the body. Zea had been right. It was the exultation of a proven hypothesis, and the cavernous space left by her fear being filled by relief. Her mom was okay. Still unconscious, but that was all right.

Scott pushed past both of them. She let him. Scott had been pack to Zea's mother long before being pack to Zea, so that was all right. She leaned against the wall, touching her head over to it as well.

"You..." She'd been about to say something. Zea couldn't remember what. Something nice. Something about this good feeling she had, about the people. Couldn't remember what.

Or maybe that hadn't been her. Somebody had had something nice to say, so it was all right to have it come out of her mouth. Someone's intentions were good enough, so... what difference did it make?

Finally Zea lost her grip, and the room slid sideways, tipping over into darkness.

The werewolf looked away from the patient, and the patient's friend. She looked down to her hands, experimentally touching the tip of her thumb to each finger, testing her sense of touch.

Hesitantly, she stepped away from the wall. Weight on this foot, then that one. Not so bad. Not so foreign. Trying to pass behind Scott without touching him, nonetheless she brushed his back on her way out.

"Oh, scusa, mi scusa," she said automatically. Outside the door, there was a hallway. Familiar hallway. She remembered this place. She looked away from the long rows of doors, back over her shoulder to the doorframe of the room which belonged to the patient. She hoped they'd be all right. They seemed like nice people. But right now she had to go.

A step. Another step. Weight on this foot, then that one. Her sight faded; she was losing her grip. She couldn't feel these fingers anymore. She couldn't hold. As she slipped back out into oblivion, the leg beneath her failed and she hit the tile.

"Oh scusa, mi scusa."

Scott lifted his head and turned, watching Zea with sharp eyes. Zea didn't speak whatever that language was. He'd heard her say "excuse me" a number of times.

"Angel, stop her."

Angel watched Zea, more than a little dubious.

"Angel, grab her."

He was there just in time to catch her as she fell.

"Scott!"

Scott couldn't hold Quinn forever; somewhere in his mind, he knew that, logically.

Didn't make it any less hard to lower her back down against the pillows and limp out to the hall. Angel was checking Zea's vitals. She was unconscious. It was a good thing the young were had been there.

Scott thought about kneeling down on the floor next to her. For a moment.

"Let's get her in the room," he said, gesturing for Angel to hand over Zea's torso, because he sure as hell wasn't leaning over to pick up her legs.

Of course. He should have seen that it would happen. It's not like Zea had gained some incredible surge of control in the past few months, and what he'd just seen her do probably drained everything out of her. The spirits would have jumped at the chance.

But it was worth it, the selfish voice in the back of his mind said.

They managed to get Zea on the bench and then Angel checked on Quinn. Pulse good, breathing good, wonderful.

"Um. Is she going to be okay?"

Scott had Zea's torso half in his lap, in case her eyes snapped open and somebody else wasn't home.

"Yeah. At least, she's healthy enough. Nothing you can do about it, Angel. Thank you."

Thank you, Angel. You have no idea how grateful your alpha is for this.

"You should probably get back to the other people that need your help. Or maybe get some rest. Have you slept?"

Angel shook his head with a small, tired smile.

"Go grab something to eat from Jasmine, and a nap. I'll get someone to wake you in a few hours, okay?"

If Scott said it would happen, then it would. Angel let Luz know he was off, on alpha's orders, and checked again in the room on his way out of the building.

Scott was leaning back against the wall, with his head tilted forward onto his chest, eyes closed. But one arm was on Zea's, and his head was facing so that Angel could see he'd been watching Quinn.

As it happened, of the two women Scott was keeping watch over, it was the older patient who woke first. Opening her eyes briefly, Quinn immediately squeezed them shut again. She felt like Zeke had punched her in the gut; the man had always had a hell of an arm.

She felt kind of hazy and gross. Probably been drugged. Who would have done that? She opened her eyes again, finding her friend and her daughter seemingly asleep in her room. Well, wasn't this cute. Whole family all together, and all a fucking wreck.

Well. Not everybody. Everybody except him.

Scott was such a sweetheart, and it was certainly good to see that Zea was all right. Quinn hadn't seen her since she ran off to defend her little cage-buddies. Scott was a good boy. Looked like hell, though. If it didn't hurt to breathe, she'd have kicked him in the shin again just to make sure he hadn't forgotten who was in charge here.

She wasn't sure she could, though. Weird feeling, frailty. Not something she'd be tolerating for long, but for now she figured she was entitled to indulge herself. She'd earned it.

That didn't extend to letting Scott off easy, though. He should be sleeping. In a bed. In a real bed. Possibly with IV antibiotics for all those bone-deep gashes she'd already had to sew up once goddamn it.

"Scott," she said, her voice a hoarse whisper. She cleared her throat, tried again. "Scott. If you're getting clingy on me, you're finally going to have to start putting out."

Hi, Scott, was what she meant. Good to see you, babe.

"Scott."

He jumped, winced, and stared at Quinn.

Oh. He'd fallen asleep. When had that happened? A few hours ago, judging by the light outside the window. Well shit. That wasn't supposed to happen. He had things to do.

Wait, why had he woken up?

Quinn.

Checking Zea -- still passed out but sleeping (no coma this time) -- he slid out from under her. She merely shifted when he laid her head back on the bench and moved to the bed.

"Does it mean this won't happen again?" he chuckled, which turned into a half of a cough that stopped in a gasped, pained breath. But his eyes stayed on her, and for a moment, it looked like he took it seriously.

Why couldn't he stop touching her? Was it to reassure himself that she was there? Her hand was warmer in his than last time.

"Those were stronger than horse tranquilizers, woman."

Stupid woman. Having to put herself in harm's way and attract enough attention that they had to take care of her.

He expected nothing else of her, though.

"Babe," she said, her grip uncharacteristically weak but her gaze sharp. "Right now I'd probably kill you."

This was weird. Quinn had had friends before, she was sure of it. Vixxy, for one. And obviously Zeke. And probably some of the guys from the unit, and her girl Andrea of course. She'd expect them to be worried and friendlier than usual until they'd reassured themselves.

This was weird.

Yes, she'd been trying to get his clothes off for years. Not so sincerely in the last few, but it was a tradition. She was Jewish. Tradition mattered.

"Those were stronger than horse tranquilizers, woman."

"Please. It'd take more than a horse's tranquilizers to phase me."

He was being weird though. He was a good friend, but she'd never pegged him for one of those boys who got an ounce of attention from a girl and suddenly went head over heels. Quinn wasn't often wrong, but maybe she had been.

Oh, well. Just cool it for a while, that was all.

She slipped her hand out of his, and changed the subject. "Had the weirdest dream. Shouldn't have dreams when you're tranq'ed, I thought. Can't be right, but it's the oddest damn thing," Quinn said, risking a chuckle at her own expense, and at how deeply disturbed she was by a stupid silly dream.

"I dreamed that I died. I mean, I know I didn't, obviously. But I dreamed I did. But I got to big old What's His Face and He said no." Pretty standard near-death experience sort of story. "Except... it's stupid. Never mind."

Scott's face darkened grimly and he tucked the end of a bandage back under.

"You had us really worried, Quinn."

A quick glance at Zea, and then he looked back at her from under his (split and sewn back together) eyebrows.

Quinn's action made him realize that he was being weird.

But dammit, he didn't care.

It wasn't the same feeling when he'd found out about Jossy.

And he really wasn't sure if the offer was a joke or not.

It was just.

Well.

Quinn had always been there. She was his friend, and he'd lost so many of the people he could call that. And then the whole Alpha thing and the attack and he'd never felt such a surge of possessiveness before. Sure, he was used to the irrational feelings when it came to his house, and a little bit about his students, but never like this with Quinn.

But something in his gut told him that it felt right.

Quinn was his.

Not the way that Marcus and Jocelyn scared off prospects. At least, he didn't think it was that way. It didn't seem like it.

Just...

She belonged under his protection, part of his territory.

His friend.

His human.

His.

He hadn't really noticed, until he'd walked past the room's doorway and seen Zea.

But almost losing her had made forced the emotion onto him like a two-ton weight, smacking him full in the face and mashing everything around until all that mattered was making sure she didn't leave him all alone in charge of everyone.

Attempt at subject-changing: failed. Ah, well. Boys were dense; she didn't like them for their ability to catch hints, after all.

Thing was, it shouldn't matter if people were worried. Why should they be worried. She was a grown damn woman and she could handle herself and it wasn't like it had been that bad. She was still here, wasn't she?

What an awful dream. One of those dreams where she knew she should be feeling pleased, but just felt this pervasive and inexplicable horror.

When she'd faced God, the great I Am That I Am who had chosen her people for their sacred navigational clusterfuck through the desert, it wasn't what she'd expected. It wasn't who she'd expected.

It just felt monstrous.

Whatever. Nightmares never stayed scary for long. That's what waking up was for.

Another subject-change. Quinn could keep trying until her heart gave out again, and right now it was seeming like a decent plan. "Sent Zea to go pick a fight. How'd it go? She find one?"

He still wanted to hold her. To make sure that she was really there and breathing and awake and here and alive.

To keep her safe for just a while, because if he didn't she'd run off and go do something reckless again.

It dawned on him that the irony of the situation was not entirely misfounded.

Although it wasn't so much that Quinn was being a stupid woman so much that she was just being... well.

Quinn.

And really, she wouldn't be the person he'd realized he needed so, if she didn't do things like that.

His head dropped and he looked at Zea again, sleeping peacefully. It was a stark contrast to when he'd walked in.

"From what I heard and the brief glimpse I saw, she sure did. Didja proud, even. Kicked some ass and made them wish they'd never set eyes on Vancouver."

Quinn smiled and closed her eyes, too pleased to do anything but sit and bask in maternal pride at her only daughter's successful murderous rampage.

"That's my baby," she said.

Caleb appeared into the doorway, leaning against his cane and ignoring the screaming spirits around him, and honed in on John.

"WHAT."

"THE."

"HELL."

"WAS."

"THAT."

As it happened, honing in on John was precisely the right thing to do, because honing in on Zea was... more difficult. If John hadn't been at ground zero of her power, he might not have been able to sense her himself.

She didn't feel the same. She didn't look the same. Something had flickered, dimmed, and gone out. She looked like the others now, with their stupid blind and deaf little half-lives in their stupid corporeal bodies.

To John it felt like his Zea had died. Though, of course, he could have handled that.

And then that cripple showed up. So attached to his own mortal form that he still had those little piggy squinting eyes and that stupid cane. John hated him. He hated Caleb because Zea wouldn't let him get rid of the little brat. Little recently-deceased infant of a ghost.

Still. It wasn't like he had anyone else to talk to, he noted with a frustrated and distressed---well, it wasn't a glance. He could be aware of her whenever he wanted. Still. It would have been nice if it were just the two of them again.

"I think I know," he answered. "But I didn't know she could do that. She... didn't tell me."

Caleb frowned, trying to look at Zea.

There was something wrong.

It was like looking at... At one of the others. Anybody else. Anybody he didn't really know or have any reason to know or to look at.

Almost like he didn't even want to look at her, or focus on her.

"Do what."

He'd been with Kepler the whole time, keeping a close eye on her and... well. It wasn't exactly like he could do anything to the Vanguard men, but he was there. It was all he could do. So he did it. And he watched Griff.

He'd stayed with them after the raid, to make sure everything would be okay. That they would be okay. That Kepler would be okay.

Scott could handle himself. For fuck's sake, he was Scott. The last Caleb saw of Scott was a giant grey and dun ball of fur and muscles tearing across campus to do some hurt. Which was as it should be.

So he'd been sitting, and watching, when the campus had gone still. A tense, waiting stillness. Not in the normal world, but on the ethereal plane he existed on. It was as though somebody had pulled existence taut, so very very tight that it might snap. Everything almost hummed, like it was waiting to snap.

And then it did. A rushing, howling sound, and then the ghosts started screaming. It had something to do with the hospital. And with Zea. Nobody else had a ...taste, if you will, to them like Zea's power did.

"I don't think I should talk about it," John said. "It's none of your business, any of you."

Yeah! This was good. This was familiar territory. Better than being frightened of losing the only link to the bright hot world of the living that John had left, far better, to just bitch at other ghosts and bully them into recognizing his obvious superiority that--oh god--really only came from Zea and why wasn't she listening to him?

"I don't know what's wrong with her. This has never happened before."

They were all so angry; the other spirits, that is.

The phrase "wailing and gnashing of teeth" was over-used, in Caleb's opinion.

This, this was what that phrase was really meant for.

Something had been done that wasn't meant to be done.

And the spirit-world wanted blood.

But they didn't know who, or how, or even exactly what, so they were just here where it had happened.

Caleb looked over at Scott, talking with Quinn (Quinn... Dr. Mazuo's mother, right? Yeah. That old woman that Scott was friends with. The one who kept trying to get into his pants, but it seemed more like a joke than serious.).

Maybe it was something to do with her.

She looked... off. Something was wrong. Something that shouldn't have been.

But in the end, she was alive. He could definitely tell that.

John was being even less of a help than his usual pompous asshole self.

But even Caleb could see.

John, Zea Mazuo's John, that asshole with her attention and feeding off of her power, was worried. He'd never seen that before. Ever.

"...I'm going to go find Griffin."

Every particle of John's being screamed sullen and resentful and downright petulant, but he could find no argument. He wasn't supposed to talk to Griffin Lowell, but it wasn't a bad idea to let him know what had happened.

And so John uttered what might have been the first supportive, or at least minimally-dismissive, word he'd spoken to another ghost in recent memory.

"Good."