“Jase, come on, it’s fine—”

Jase halts mid-pace. “Excuse me?”

“Nicely done.” Fosher mutters into Gary’s ear, edging carefully away from the object of Jase’s wrath. Gary gulps, and quickly backtracks.

“I mean, it’s not fine, obviously, but it’s done now. The hospital checked him out; there was nothing wrong.”

“Oh, because Luke usually causes tornados in crowded places.”

“Well, yeah.”

Fosher puts his head in his hands. “For the love of god, Gary…” He mutters. “If he takes me down with you, I am so going to kill you.”

Not five minutes ago, Dr. Morgan, having been informed of Jase’s release from Lahny Hospital, had sent the record of Luke’s stay at West Range to the lieutenant. Fosher and Gary now got the fun job of trying to keep Jase from a) killing any one, b) hunting Luke down and killing him, for being so bold as to land himself in a hospital while he was unconscious.

“Why the hell didn’t you wake me?” Jase demands, turning on them, and it’s not much of a stretch to imagine his eyes as teeny tiny balls of fire.

“You were in a coma!”

“And?!”

“Jase, you need to calm down; Dr. Pearson said not to strain yourself too much yet.” Fosher says, rather reasonably, he thinks, but that doesn’t stop him from clutching onto Gary for dear life when Jase looks like he’s considering wringing his neck.

“I need to calm down? He’s going to get himself fucking killed!”

“Killing us won’t help that.” Gary interjects, and probably he should have first tried to convince Jase that no, Luke wasn’t a suicidal maniac most of the time. Not that he would even know where do start.

Fosher gets to his feet nervously, hands raised in the universal gesture for ‘look at me, I have no weapon, I come in peace, please don’t kill me.’ “Look, just sit down, take a few deep breaths, it helps.”

“No, I need, I need to speak to Dr. Pearson.”

“Okay, but that’ll be kind of hard if your heart explodes. So humor me, please.”

As Jase sits, warily, Gary moves to stand by Fosher, still not trusting Jase not to snap and throttle him. Fosher gives him a dirty look, but doesn’t comment, more concerned with keeping Jase from hyperventilating.

“You haven’t spoken to him, have you? Luke, I mean.” Jase asks, voice obscured by a pant leg, as he’s leaned forward till his head’s between his knees at Fosher’s insistence.

“Not since West Range, no.”

“Has anyone?”

“He and Reefer are working on the phantoms. I’m sure Reefer’s looking after him.” Fosher says soothingly, sliding onto the seat Gary had vacated.

Jase sits back up, resting his head against the wall. His voice is soft, tired, scared when he speaks again, and Fosher has to lean in to be able to hear him. “He’s going to get himself killed.”

“Not if we can help it.” Fosher says firmly, and Gary nods; the Fleet always protects its own.

Previous: Scene 5-VI

Scene 5-VII

Next: Scene 5-VIII