Usual disclaimers apply: I own nothing but the story.

Spoilers for 'Second Double' and 'The Telling'.

SHADING TO WHITE   by Jayne Leitch

C. 2003

The days that follow are blurry with pain, confusion and medication. Will spends the time he isn't sleeping staring at the ceiling of his hospital room; his thoughts, when he has them, are sluggish and unfocused, and he has no concept of time. He measures increments of his life by the shifting shades of white as the day passes across the ceiling, but even that becomes confused when the nurse stands between his bed and the window and adjusts the flow of his IV.

Visitors are occasional, dim blotches between his eyes and the shifting white. Their voices are muted, unintelligible, and make him drag his dry tongue around his cracked lips, reminiscent of the taste of salt and a nagging feeling that his word associations are off.

His first words, when his pain meds are finally dialled back and he focuses his gaze--all too briefly and with far too much effort--not on the nurse beside him but on the lean gray shape slumped in the door, are, "In the kitchen--it was in the kitchen--"

But then he blinks, and the next time he opens his eyes, all he remembers is the dark taste of chocolate as the meaning of the kitchen is whited out.

*~*~*

Too much time passes before he can wake up and be *awake*, and even then his life doesn't get much less monochromatic, or more coherent. None of the nurses--the only people who ever come to his room--seem to be able to *hear* him, much less answer his simplest questions, and soon the fiery, vaguely itchy pain of his healing stab wounds are nothing compared to his anxiety over what happened while he was out.

When Will opens his eyes one morning to find the dark, solid bulk of Jack Bristow in the chair beside his bed, he's barely fully conscious before the words start tumbling out.

"There was a second clone, Jack, it was Francie, she's really someone named A.G. Doran, you have to--"

But Jack's hand on his arm stems the tide. Will realizes it's the first time anyone but the medical personnel has touched him in...it must be weeks, now.

Jack's hand is cold and dry, and his face is too pale. He watches with a steady calm that Will supposes is built out of decades of necessity as Will forces a cracked-edge smile. "Hey, this time it's not a ploy to take the suspicion off me, okay?"

"We know about Allison Doran, Will," Jack says, as if he hadn't spoken. "Sydney uncovered her, and--we think Sydney uncovered her, and...took care of things."

"You *think*? But--" Jack pulls his hand away, and Will reaches after it without thinking, only to be pulled up short by his IV. The pinch of pain as the needle jostles under his skin clarifies his thoughts, and he stares at the black lapels of Jack's suitcoat. "Can you tell me what happened?"

The pause before Jack speaks tells him everything he needs to know.

The actual words are white noise.

End.

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