A/N: This story has been sitting on my computer for a little while (a year and a half). I got it nearly finished and then got distracted with other WIPs, but I really wanted to finish it and I finally did (I now have one WIP that's been sitting around for years begging to be finished...other WIPs, but no others that have been sitting around for a long time). I was experimenting with a slightly different style. For almost the entire story, there is only one setting and only two characters. It's a dark, angsty story (big surprise), but it's also going to feel very claustrophobic because there's just the one location. That's the idea, anyway. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: As always, I'm not making money off this story. I don't own the characters.

Enigma
by Enthusiastic Fish

It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma; but perhaps there is a key.
~Winston Churchill

Chapter 1

The mumbling woke him up. Again. And as he always did, the man got out of bed and stumbled through the darkness to the other bed.

"Can...cnnn...no...baaa...can..." Over and over.

He knelt down on the floor and put his hand on the other man's arm as he mumbled incoherently. He left it there until the mumbling eased off and the man appeared to go back to sleep. The physical contact seemed to help, and he was willing to do it if it was necessary.

After a few minutes, it was silent once more, except for the slightly irregular breathing of the man on the bed.

The man on the floor sighed and leaned his head back against the wall, rubbing the heels of his hands together. He tried to keep quiet, but every waking moment was unending and tedious. Even when those waking moments were at two in the morning. If only he dared contact anyone. If only he knew what was going on. The problem was that he didn't. He only knew that they were closing in on three weeks in this dump and, if there wasn't some clarity soon, he was going to have to take a risk and reach out to the outside world in hopes of figuring out what had caused this.

Tomorrow would be the day to check the bandages and replace them. It would also be bath day, something that heartily embarrassed him but was a necessity with the wounds that could still face infection.

Had this been the best option? Should he have hidden out here, away from the hospital his companion obviously still needed? But then, he'd almost been killed at the hospital. How had they tracked in on him so quickly? Those thoughts drove him to his feet and he started to pace back and forth, still rubbing the heels of his hands together.

That was why he had fled the hospital and had spent the last three weeks hiding out, contacting no one. He didn't know who the bad guys were. He knew a few of the good guys, but he didn't know if there were bad guys around them.

He didn't turn on a light, even though he was pretty sure it wouldn't make any difference to his companion. The sound might, though. He sat down again and tried to be quiet, making sure that nothing else would disturb his companion's slumber. As lonely and tedious as it was when his companion was asleep, it was almost worse when he was awake.

He wondered how much longer this was going to last. Certainly, in the last couple of days, things had seemed to be improving, somewhat. But there was still this incoherence, confusion, and general lack of connection to the world. Well, the doctor had said that it was a waiting game, and he could wait here as well as anywhere. It wasn't like there had been any particular plan to speed things up. It was just about waiting. Waiting and hoping for healing.

But for how much longer?

He sighed again.

How much longer could this really work? They'd run out of food eventually, and it was dangerous to leave him alone and perhaps even more dangerous to be seen multiple times in the same area. He'd stocked up as much as possible before getting here, and once, he had chanced leaving to replenish his supplies.

Thankfully, his companion could eat. He had to be fed mostly in liquid form, but he could eat. That had been the deciding factor. Everything else, since he was breathing on his own, could be dealt with, but if he couldn't eat on his own, taking him from the hospital would have been signing a death warrant. It wasn't like he could go to the corner market and buy an IV stand, a bag and whatever the stuff was that they put in the IV bags.

He sat on the floor until his rear end began to go numb. Finally, he got up and felt his way back to bed. He climbed in and lay there for a long time, hoping for sleep, fearing what sleep might bring.

How much longer?

Eventually, he slept.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

He awoke. It felt like being thrown out of a pool of water onto the hard concrete on the side. He lay there, breathing in and out, wondering where he was, what was happening and what was going to happen next. He also had this mortal fear of being killed. He knew that it was important that he stay wherever he was. He couldn't go back.

"Hey! Whoa! Calm down! It's okay."

It was really important that whoever was there know that he couldn't go back, that he had to stay. He tried to speak.

"Cannnnnn...gooo...baaaaac...annnn...goooooo...baaaaaa..."

He kept trying to say it, trying to impress on whoever was there the importance of his message by repeating it over and over again.

"Look, just calm down. Be quiet. I don't know how thick these walls are."

Then, there was a pause.

"Wait a second. Can you hear me? Are you listening? Could you really be hearing me and understanding what I'm saying?"

He felt a hand holding his. There was a strange ache there, but it wasn't intolerable.

"I know that it might hurt, but squeeze my hand twice if you're actually listening to me, if you're hearing what I'm saying."

Squeeze his hand. It was worth a shot.

He thought of squeezing. Twice.

"I can't believe it! You responded! You did something! There's someone in there! You have no idea how great this is!"

Maybe. Maybe not. He certainly didn't feel very good, and he was still terrified that he'd be going back. That couldn't happen.

He started trying to speak again, saying that he couldn't go back.

The hand disappeared from his hand and reappeared on his forehead.

"Calm down. It's okay. Don't worry. Everything is just fine. You're safe. I'm safe. We're good."

The flow of words was strangely soothing, although he couldn't think why it was soothing or why it was strange that it was. Eventually, though, he calmed enough to stop talking and listen.

"Can you open your eyes?"

Eyes. Right. It was dark. He had simply assumed that was the way it was supposed to be. But he knew that his eyes did open. Or at least, that they had opened in the past. Yes. They could open. He could try that.

He struggled, but it felt like there were heavy weights holding them down.

"I saw that for a second. Come on. Keep trying."

After what seemed like an eternity, he got his eyes to open and stay that way. Well, they weren't completely open, but it wasn't too bad. He could see the man who was with him. He looked scruffy, actually.

"Excellent! I'd tell you to give me five, but I don't think you could manage it in your condition. We'll just have to wait until you're better."

The meaning of that sentence flew right over his head and struck the wall behind him.

"Can you see me?"

He mumbled something that he thought might be an affirmative.

"Good. Do you know me?"

That was a much harder question because the answer was yes, but he didn't know who the man was. So it was yes, but no, and he didn't even know how to put words to it.

So he just stared for a long time. He could have sworn that, even through his muddled brain and his half-open eyes, the man staring at him looked disappointed. It was like he was failing some test or something.

That was wrong. He didn't fail tests. He always passed. Always. And not just passed. He aced tests. Keeping his eyes open was too hard. He couldn't think and look at the same time. He let his eyes close.

"It's okay. You can tell me later."

He could hear the disappointment. That was unacceptable. With his eyes closed, he had more energy to think. He lay there and thought hard. He didn't know how long it took. He just knew that he had to think and had to figure out who it was that he knew but couldn't remember. He thought and thought and thought.

Finally, without any fanfare, the identification was there. Now, could he actually get the word out or not? It was so hard to know whether or not the sounds coming out of his mouth made any sense.

He wanted this to be exactly right. He lay there thinking hard about how to say the name. He was pretty sure that much of what he'd tried to say hadn't been understood and he wanted to make sure that this was clear.

He thought through his muddled brain, through the aching pain he felt over much of his body, through the mush in his mouth.

"Tony."