About ten minutes later, the old, loud, unit was in James’s office window, blocking out the sun and slowly cooling the room. James was in the kitchen with Amelia, making coffee before going into what was going to be a very tight space with the whole team today.

“I want to make Madelyn stay in there as much as possible,” Amelia said as James scooped the coffee grounds. “As much as I can make her do anything, I mean. Everyone else can make their own decisions.”

She looked at him and James did his best not to be irritated, but he was so hot that it didn’t quite work.

“When Bradley inevitably overdoes it with his knee, him too,” he said, ignoring what she hadn’t said.

They both knew that was unlikely, but James felt like, as a good leader, he should at least try. “Did he tell you he had lunch with my mother?”

Amelia blinked at him. “No,” she said. “No, he didn’t mention that part.”

“Yeah, she got in yesterday for the services. Apparently he got there as they were making lunch and they told him to stay.”

“That’s…”

“It’s not so funny when it happens to me.”

Amelia laughed. “No, it’s still funny.”

James frowned, but she just smiled innocently.

When they got back into his office, everyone who was currently working was there. Gabriella and Graham were on the couch while Bradley had taken one of the kitchen chairs and a corner of James’s desk. Madelyn was arriving shortly, so James would have the battle with her when it was time. But it was already feeling a little better in here, so maybe she wouldn’t be stubborn.

For the first time in her life.

“I talked to McGovern about those courses,” he said to Graham as he passed by the couch. “It’s not definite, but they really want to do it.”

The Foundation wanted to update some of their training materials to replace the outdated, somewhat inaccurate videos and quizzes they had now, which included the safety training materials James hadn’t gotten a chance to do yet. They’d been thrilled at the idea of a college professor taking the job, at least until James had mentioned compensation. They’d been less excited since then, but McGovern was still hopeful. And while that usually didn’t mean much, James knew the Foundation wanted this. So he just had to wait them out.

“Just let me know,” Graham said. “If it’s-”

“They have the money,” James interrupted. “Trust me, they have the money.”

“Alright, man.”

James glanced at his watch. “Madelyn’s in in a few minutes,” he said. “After that, we can have the meeting.”

He went behind his desk and started on the report he’d been working on before he left yesterday, suddenly conscious of his loud typing with everyone here. Nobody complained though, not that they would have. Besides, the sound of his keyboard was almost drowned out by the air conditioner. 

Was that thing almost as old as he was?

His phone buzzed and he pulled it out.

MOM

Have you eaten lunch yet?

James wanted to laugh at the fact that his mother was texting to see if he’d eaten, but he actually hadn’t. So he swallowed his pride and turned to Bradley, who was writing something on his phone. “You said my aunt sent me lunch?” he asked, hoping it sounded casual.

“It’s in the fridge,” Bradley said, not looking up from what he was doing.

There was an unfamiliar thermal lunch bag tucked in the mostly empty refrigerator when James opened it a minute later. He checked and, sure enough, there was a wedge of quiche and some salad. It was Auntie Jules’ quiche, which he’d always loved and she knew that. He reminded himself of this as he took out the lunch bag and a package of cookies he assumed were meant for the whole team. 

The front door opened and closed, but there were no footsteps. James’s heart sped up, just for an instant, seeming to drop down from his chest to his stomach. But the more rational part of him set his food down on the counter and went over to the stairs to look down, concerned.

Like he expected, Madelyn was standing there, leaning heavily on her cane. She looked up and waved him off. “I’m fine,” she said, breathing heavily.

“Sure,” James said as he came downstairs toward her. 

“Just give me a second.”

She sat down on the bottom step so quickly that James thought she’d fallen. And maybe she was trying to salvage a fall so that he didn’t send her home. It was tempting. She looked awful, her face paler than usual and her legs shaking. “It’s just the heat,” she said. 

“I figured.”

“It’s fine, I’m from the tropics.”

“I know.”

He sat down beside her, resisting the urge to take her hand. Madelyn stared blankly at the door for a moment and he began to wonder if he should skip the going home part and get her to a doctor. Jolene wasn’t going to be around today, but they’d been assigned a new team physician anyway, because having your doctor working in the same building as you was a little too intimate for the Foundation’s liking. So it didn’t matter what her schedule was, he shouldn’t call. 

And that was fair. But maybe he should call Dr. Hillard. Urgent Care probably wouldn’t help. And what was the emergency room going to do for her that Madelyn didn’t already do? Beyond maybe providing better drugs. 

“Stop, I’m fine,” Madelyn said, as though she’d read his mind.

“At least come into the office, we’ve got Gabriella’s mom’s old air conditioner in there.”

James took a concerning amount of Madelyn’s weight on the way up the stairs, but she was steady enough as they got to the living room. Six months later, the computer bank in here was still down the computer that he’d shoved to the floor after attacking Madelyn under Adele’s control. Someone had taken the desk down too. He didn’t know who, but he appreciated it. While James had reached a point where he could acknowledge that what happened wasn’t his fault, he still felt guilty about what he’d done to Madelyn. Her reasonable fear of him had lingered for a while and he wondered sometimes how she felt now, not that he’d ever ask.

Madelyn touched his arm. “Hey,” she said, her voice a little breathy. “Before we go in, I have a question.”

“Yeah, what’s up?”

Madelyn looked up at him, her eyes huge and innocent behind her glasses. “How was Bradley’s date with your mom?”

“I’m going to push you down the fucking stairs.”

James froze suddenly as he realized what he’d said and to whom, but she just laughed, patted his arm with a shaking hand, and opened the office door. 

As they got in, Graham and Gabriella moved aside so that Madelyn could sit. She joined them, then took out her water bottle and laptop and waited expectantly for the meeting to start.

James glanced down at his phone, saw his mother’s message again, and realized he’d forgotten his lunch out in the kitchen. As he went out, Bradley did too. 

“I’ve got the presentation on the computer out here,” he said as they stepped out into the oppressively hot air in the dining room. “Want me to still bring it in?”

James thought for a second. “No,” he said. “There’s nowhere to present it so we’d just end up all crammed around my computer. Is there anything in the presentation that isn’t in the packets?”

“Other than my wasted time?”

James raised his eyebrows and Bradley relented. “No,” he said.

“We’ll print it out and hang it on the fridge, I promise.”

As James went toward the kitchen, Bradley said, “Wait.”

He turned. “Your cousin, Celia. She said she’s going to call you tomorrow morning. She needed to talk.”

Shit. Images of walking dolls, burning galaxy lamps, and a shadow peeling itself off a closet wall filled James’s mind. “Did she say what about?”

“No,” Bradley replied. “She didn’t seem overly concerned though.”

Was she actually not concerned or was it that she was surrounded by her mother and aunts and didn’t want to worry them? “Right, thanks,” James said, already taking out his phone to text Celia.

Her response came through almost immediately.

CELIA

Hey! Everything’s fine, I just have to ask you some stuff and I have the night shift tonight.

That was a relief. At least, as much of a relief as it could be.

He followed Bradley back into the office. “How’s everyone doing?” he asked with a laugh.

Bradley just looked at him. Madelyn looked a little better than she had a few minutes ago. She was sitting against the armrest of the couch with her knees up, a laptop perched against them. Her color looked healthier and James was finally able to dismiss the idea of trying to convince her to call Dr. Hillard.

Hillard was a hard sell. It had been about three months since she’d taken over for Jolene as the team’s doctor and James had only talked to her a couple times. The first time, she’d had far too many questions about the control compound Adele had used on him, launching into them before he could really process what was happening. How had he known what had happened? Did he notice any differences to his thought patterns while under her control? And the one that still haunted him: did he think that the connection was truly broken in every way? She’d barely gotten that one out before Jolene had all but shoved James out of the medbay. As he’d stood there at the bottom of the stairs, trying to catch his breath, he’d heard Jolene’s angry voice behind the door, wanting to know exactly what the hell Dr. Hillard thought she was doing. 

The second time, she’d asked him for updates on the team’s health statuses. He wasn’t quite sure what she meant by that and she hadn’t clarified, so he’d had to guess what she needed. One was designated a disabled member, permanently injured on the job. One was in the process and James could see them potentially trying to argue that that one wasn’t a qualifier for any assistance, since Bradley had been originally hurt off the clock.

Then re-hurt, keeping James from killing himself.

He was over it. And James would keep fighting to get Bradley the surgery he needed from his position as captain, not just because of the obligation he felt when he thought about the way he’d been so sure that no one was going to be able to save him seconds before he’d landed safely and painfully on the old linoleum.

Over it.

The others seemed to feel pretty similarly about Hillard, so he knew it’d be a  battle to get anyone to call her with anything short of a broken limb. But they couldn’t go to Jolene for anything short of imminent death. And even if she was willing to help off the clock – of course she was, she’d offered multiple times for emergencies – James didn’t feel right adding to her work.

He realized the others were looking at him. Right, he had trailed off there, not listening to any answers they might have given to his question, if there were any.

James scooted by the empty chair beside his desk and went for the relative safety of his own seat as Bradley sat down at the desk too. It was far too crowded in here, they weren’t going to last the day. But they had to. They’d be fine.

“Where’s Fang?” Madelyn asked.

Claws on the top of James’s thin canvas sneaker answered that question. He flinched, then looked down to see the old calico cat swatting him away from where she’d hidden herself to keep cool. 

“Trying to kill me,” he answered Madelyn.

He shifted to his notebook, accidentally bumping Bradley’s coffee and catching it just in time before it spilled onto Bradley’s lap.

This was going to be a long day. “Alright,” he said. “Close quarters today, so we’ll all have to be extra nice to each other. Let’s get started.”

***

Two hours later, James didn’t want to admit to Amelia that she was right about his clothes. He was so hot that he was getting dizzy. After all his pushing to get Madelyn into the cooler room before she overheated, he was the one now losing focus every few minutes. And when he changed into his spare shirt, which was of course another turtleneck, it helped with the sweating, but not the overheating, no matter how much water he drank. 

Around three, he could tell it was getting noticeable. At least to Amelia, whose unsubtle glances were getting him more and more unjustly frustrated. By this point, Gabriella had slipped out to do some research at the library, but everyone else was still in here. He should go home and change, but James knew if he went home, he wouldn’t be able to walk out the door with something more appropriate when he could just move on to turtleneck number three.

God, he hated turtlenecks. 

Gathering his nerve, he turned to Bradley. “Can I ask you a favor?”

“My bag’s in the back bedroom,” Bradley said without looking up from the laptop he had precariously set on the edge of James’s desk.

“What? No, I mean, can I talk to you outside for a second?”

Bradley stood up and walked out of the room without a word. James followed, wondering how he had possibly offended Bradley now. He got out of the office and hurried after him in the stifling air as Bradley walked toward the back bedroom.

“Listen, I’m sorry to ask, but-”

Then there was a light blue work shirt being shoved at him. “Here,” Bradley said. 

It had long sleeves, but was made of a light fabric he didn’t recognize and much nicer than anything James owned that he hadn’t bought to wear to a wedding. “I don’t-”

“Change before you fucking pass out.”

And then he left the room, closing the door behind himself. James pulled off the sweaty turtleneck and pulled on the work shirt, buttoning it with shaking hands. Nothing was going to get him. Not here, not anywhere. And if he got heatstroke and passed out, they’d end up cutting his shirt off of him anyway and things would be even worse. 

Bradley’s spare shirt fit him better than he’d expected, since Bradley had always been thinner than James. But apparently he hadn’t gained back quite as much weight as he thought he had. It was exactly what he needed. Even with the top button done, it wasn’t strangling him like the turtleneck had. 

As he walked back out, straightening the sleeves, Bradley was setting up the comms computer in the living room for Graham’s case that afternoon. “Thanks,” James said. 

“Yeah.”

“Do you want to do that on my computer?”

“It’s all set up here.”

“But-”

Bradley motioned to the army of oscillating fans that were still lying around the room. “I’ll survive for an hour. Also your lunch was on the counter. I put it in the fridge.”

“Thanks.”

Bradley went back to ignoring James and James kept going to the office. He’d eat in a little bit. And maybe it was just the relief at his body cooling down, but as he went back into the office, he was far more self-conscious about the fact that he was clearly wearing one of Bradley’s shirts because he hadn’t been able to get himself to dress properly from the start than he was afraid of anything happening. 

He caught Amelia’s eye but she didn’t mention it. Instead, she stood and checked for her car keys. “I’m going to head home,” she said, then left. 

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CONTINUE TO CHAPTER 3

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