Mindi and Brian beat him to it. Brian was looking a lot better, if still disheveled and limping a little. Mindi waved as A.J. moved closer.
"This is a total nightmare, cuz." Kevin was saying to Brian. "The world's gone crazy."
"It's definitely weird," Brian agreed. "But all the weird stuff seems to be for the good. I was a lot more busted-up than this when they got me out."
"Ambulance, cops, the whole deal are on their way." Mindi reported, "Anyone not an EMT, or part of the fire brigade, is getting ready to pull out."
"How do you know that?" Kevin inquired.
"She's psychic." Brian and A.J. chorused.
"Like I said." Kevin shook his head, "World's gone crazy."
"Mr. Richardson, if you'd just lie back and relax you can deal with a crazy world with a hairline fracture in that leg of yours instead of with torn ligaments and the compound break you've got now."
Kevin raised an eyebrow but when his friends all nodded at him, he shrugged and lay back on the stretcher.
"What d'you think they're doing now?" Brian asked A.J.
"Cover-up?" A.J. guessed, watching various people vanish, and the ground begin to alter itself around the bus's track down to the tree.
Mindi interrupted them. "Guys, don't get upset."
"Oh God." Brian went pale again.
"Hang in there Bri." A.J. hugged him. "We gotta keep it together. What is it Mindi?"
"They're gonna start cutting Nick out."
"CUTTING HIM..." A.J. shoved a hand over Brian's mouth and stared straight in his eyes.
"B-rok there is all the time in the world to freak out later. Believe me, I intend to have a total nervous breakdown when this is all over." He prayed for the right words to get Brian to understand. "But you gotta be strong. The best way to help Nicky is to stay calm. I'm gonna take my hand away now... I want you to take a deep breath, and calm the fuck down."
"Pray, if you'd like." Mindi put in.
Slowly, A.J. took his hand away. Brian stared at him for a moment, then took a long, shuddering breath, and let it out. He folded his hands, bowed his head, and started to pray. A faint tendril of thought brushed Mindi's mind and she relayed it to A.J. "He says thanks, Alex."
A.J. bit his lip at this further indication of Nick's weakness. Mindi saw the worry in his eyes, and hugged him. "He'll be all right. We just don't have much time left. The 'real' emergency crews are on their way. There's not enough time to heal him all the way, so the telekinetics are gonna open up the bus... can't go with the same 'thrown from the bus' story they'll tell about the rest of them."
"How are you so calm, Mins?" he whispered.
"Long-practiced repression." she whispered back. "I'll be joining you in that nervous breakdown later today."
The sound of metal tearing made him wince.
"Promise?"
"Oh yeah."
A.J. glanced over at the bus wreck, looking away quickly as he saw the metal pucker and tear further. It was just too ghastly. His eyes came to rest on Lina. She was sitting on the ground, cross-legged, leaning against her chair. He wondered if she was one of the telekinetic crew - her eyes were certainly boring holes in the bus. Her face was pale and tear-streaked, if otherwise the calm mask that most of the psychics assumed. Somehow, to A.J. this made her look even more worried.
"How's Lina?" he asked abruptly.
Mindi looked over her shoulder at Nick's partner. "How would you be if someone you'd known nine years was trapped in a bus?" she asked wryly. A.J. understood. Lina was in the same position as he was. Worse, because she knew every single detail of what was going on inside. She said she was feeding Nick energy; could she feel him slipping away?
"What happens to her at the end of the day?" he asked quietly, full of compassion. "When the ambulances and fire trucks and police cars get here... what then?"
"She might hang around to keep Nick in one piece - more likely I'll get to play doctor with him and she'll go home to bed."
"Where's home?" As he waited for the answer, watching Lina, she began to shake. Without a word, Mindi was racing towards her, with three or four others. A.J. put a hand on Brian's shoulder, which turned into a hug.
"He has to get out of this." Brian insisted quietly. "They have to get him out of this! What's taking so long?"
"I don't..." Mindi's thought hit him like a shockwave.
"SING! For the love of God Alex, sing!"
Forcing himself not to think about what this meant, A.J. opened his mouth and let out with the first song he could think of.
"On the first day, that I saw your smilin' face
Honey I knew that we would be together for ever."
Brian looked at him as if he'd lost it, but joined in.
"When I asked you out, you said no, but I found out
Darlin' that you'd been hurt, you thought that you'd never love again.
But I deserve a try honey, just once, give me a chance and I prove this all wrong"
"You walked in you were so quick to judge, but honey he's nothing like me"
Kevin's voice joined theirs as they moved to the chorus.
"I'll never break your heart, I'll never make you cry..."