Mindi sent some very compelling deep-sleep imagery into the minds of the rest of the occupants of the bus, and prepared to calm A.J. His distress had woken her, and now that distress had to be dealt with. She was sitting next to him, her arms around him, rocking him gently. He still hadn't shed a tear, the shock was just too great. "They'll be ok, Alex... I swear."
He stared down at the smoking wreckage, wordlessly disbelieving. "I shoulda been on there."
"Shhh." she hugged him. "Don't say crap like that."
"It's true. All for one, one for all. They're my brothers, Mindi. I should be down there with them."
"And if you were down there, who'd help 'em through this?"
"What can I... what the FUCK is going on??" Lina and her crew of assorted psychics chose that moment to either make themselves visible or teleport in from other locations. Suddenly the area around the bus was swarming with flashlights.
"They're here to help."
"Who the... I couldn't even call anyone."
"But Nick could."
"Nick's alive? He's ok? Where is he?" A.J. was so excited he skipped over all the other questions.
"He's alive. I'm not sure how you'd define 'ok', and he's still in the bus." Mindi steeled herself for the inevitable spate of questions as A.J. looked from the no-longer smoking wreckage to her, and back again. "You have seriously flipped" was written all over his face.
"All right. We're all here now. Nick, *please* let me get you out of there." Lina begged.
"I'm their best chance of survival." he insisted.
She sighed, then went to work. "So they're all alive?"
"I'd know if they weren't." he replied, suddenly realising the truth of that statement.
"More specific, Nickolas. If you're going to work, work."
He fell silent and stretched out his senses to the other occupants of the bus. Warmth filled him as he touched Howie, Kevin and Brian. They were all badly hurt but... "Bob's dead."
"Bob?" Lina's voice filled with anxiety. "Your dad's on the.."
"No! The bus driver."
"Oh. Damn. Well we'll leave him till last then. Where are the others?"
"Brian's..." Nick sucked air into his aching lungs, stunned at what he could feel. "Shit. I take the bunk under his... but he's under me. I think I'm crushing him!"
"Wake him up." she instructed calmly. Nick had been on tens of rescue teams before. He knew the drill, but she knew that it was completely different on the other side of the line.
Nick tried to calm himself. This was a psychic rescue operation. He was one of the best on the continent. So was Lina. But this was *BRIAN*. Brian, his big brother, his best friend. The guy who hated hospitals, who had a heart condition. In the back of his mind, he heard Lina softly coaching him on the centring technique psychics used before making contact with non-psychics.
"Away from your body. Into your self. You. No physical barriers. No where. No what."
"Just how, just why, just do." His own pain floated away as Nick let go of his body. He reached out for Brian, concentrating not on his smile, his sandy hair, his short body, but on his spirit. Brian's sense of humour. His determination. His generosity. His love, his fear.
The fear hit Nick head-on. Brian had retreated away from physical pain but on some level he was still aware of what was happening, and was deathly afraid. Instead of the somewhat clinical calming influence he would usually use, Nick surrounded Brian with love.
"It's all right Bri. I'm gonna get you to safety. It's all right. I'm here."
Still on that very safe unconscious level, Brian responded tentatively. "Nicky?"
"Yeah, it's me. I'm here. I'll make sure you're ok."
"You will?"
"I'll protect you." Nick assured him. "I know it's horrible and hard in the real world, but Brian, I need you to wake up." He began weaving a net that would protect his friend from most of the pain once he reached consciousness.
"Something very bad..."
"I know Bri. I know. But you gotta trust me. I'll handle the pain, and then I'm gonna hand you off to some people that are gonna make you all better. Wake up."
"You'll stay with me?"
"I can't stay the whole time. But all you have to do is yell, ok? I'll be right there."
"Promise?"
"Absolutely. Now c'mon." Nick held the net tight as Brian edged towards consciousness. He let Brian's pain flow through him instead, until he could take it no more. "Lina?"
"Over-achiever," she grumbled, trying to hide her fear for him. Smoothly she let Nick do what he did best, acting as a conduit between psychic and non - feeding Brian's pain into one of the team specially designated for this kind of thing. Then Brian was fully awake and Nick moved on to stage two. Slipping into Brian's conscious mind, Nick picked out all the information the team would need to get the kind of hair-trigger accuracy a medical teleportation required. He threw in a few things about the layout of the bus and dug up Brian's medical history before passing it all on to the waiting teleports.