Title: Sleight of Hand 5/14
Author: Magpie and Wolfling
Email: magpie@moracle.co.uk and wolfling@sympatico.ca
Show: Buffy
Rating: NC-17
Category: angst, hurt/comfort
Warnings: spoilers up to the end of Chosen
Pairings: Giles/Ethan
Series: Of Old Mystics, sequel to Smoke and Mirrors
Summary: It's behind the scenes where things get complicated.
Author Notes: Many thanks to Mad Poetess for betaing :) Feel better,
Wesleysgirl! This is the third story in the Of Old Mystics series; previous
stories in the series can be found
http://www.myarseisnotpansy.co.uk/piedm/mystics.html.
Ethan was so exhausted that he couldn't move his head. He was sat in a hard plastic chair by Rupert's hospital bed, his upper body lying over his unconscious husband, who was pale and bandaged and attached to numerous tubes and monitor wires.
Ethan was still groggily trying to feed the dregs of his magic into Rupert's body, cleansing it of any residual Chaos energies and trying pointlessly to mend flesh it was far too late for him to mend. He had a vague memory of Kat telling him that the coven healers had been summoned and were driving up from Devon. Other memories told him that the Council had posted guards outside this private room and surreptitiously conjured wards around the door.
Everything else people had said to him seemed to have gone from his mind; Ethan just couldn't focus on anything beyond the deadening terror consuming him inside -- Rupert might never wake up.
Might die.
Ethan might be alone again -- a 'riderless mare' to use the metaphor of the man he'd killed yesterday, the man who had done this to Rupert. And all because his lover had taken the poison bullets meant for Ethan.
"What did you say?" he croaked out to the person behind him. He knew someone had said something, but beyond that, he hadn't taken it in.
"You should get some rest," Xander repeated patiently. Ethan groggily realised that it wasn't just the second or even the third time that the younger man had said the same thing, in the same patient, gentle voice that he'd been using with Ethan since this had happened. "He won't be alone, I promise." Xander reached out and laid a hand on Ethan's shoulder. "I'll sit with him."
"No. Not leaving him."
"Yeah, I sorta figured you were going to say that." Xander sighed and sat down in the other plastic chair.
"Running out." Ethan vaguely realised the two words were ambiguous. "I'm running out. Of power." He'd run out hours ago really; stealing from his own lifeforce instead. "Did Kat... the healers? Devon?"
"They're on their way. Kat said they said they'd be here by morning." Xander hesitated, then asked awkwardly, "Could you use me? For power, I mean. Like a... battery or something?"
Ethan tried to shake his head, but he doubted the movement was noticeable. "Would hurt you. Too dangerous."
"But you could do it? And it would help?"
"Could. Might."
Xander held out his hand to Ethan. "Then do it. Giles is... Well, he'd do the same for me without even thinking about it."
Ethan didn't argue any further. He twisted on the bed to roughly face the young man and took his hand tightly, drawing on the lifeforce that the fit body contained. He'd done this before, in his murky past. His sources had been willing then as well, more or less, but it had been for very different purposes.
He felt Xander jolt, but Ethan didn't let go. He took everything that it was safe to take and a little more, feeding it into Rupert's body, boosting Rupert's own flagging supply.
Xander's eye was wide and his skin pale under his tan when Ethan finally released his hand. "That was--" He broke off as if he wasn't sure what to say, clearing his throat before he spoke again. "Did it help?"
"Maybe. Nothing will help if..." Ethan couldn't make himself say it.
"He'll wake up," Xander said sharply. "He's always woken up." He met Ethan's gaze steadily. "And he's got more to come back to now than he ever had back in Sunnydale."
So drained was Ethan that it took him many moments to realise what Xander meant. When he did, he gave the man a ragged smile. "You should... it will take a few days... It's like giving blood, you see. Try to eat well. Plenty of fluids."
"Cookies and OJ work just as well for donating energy as donating blood, huh?" Xander gave a grin that managed to look perfectly natural and stood up. "Though actually I think coffee would be more what the doctor ordered. Do you want me to bring you back a cup?"
"Tea. Tea would be good." Ethan moved his face around, burying it in the starched covers. His arm was still thrown over Rupert, rising and falling with his husband's slow breaths.
"Right. English person. Tea. Should've known. One cuppa coming up," Xander said with false brightness as he headed out of the room.
"Thank you," Ethan managed, but the door was already shut again.
He wanted to crawl onto the bed and lie with Rupert, but he'd only end up pulling something vital out. He wanted desperately to sleep, but he wouldn't -- couldn't -- let himself. He had to stay here, pumping every last drop of available magic into Rupert, wringing himself dry, in case that last minute flicker of power was the one that woke Rupert up.
Ethan was so cold.
It was stiflingly hot in the hospital, but he felt like he had been sitting in snow. His limbs were numb and heavy, and he felt quite sure nails could be driven through his hands and he'd feel nothing. He had drained his own cells of energy to feed his partner, and his body really wasn't coping. But it didn't matter what happened to his body now, if Rupert didn't wake.
Lucy had told them that there would come a time when Rupert and Ethan became so bonded that one couldn't survive without the other. Ethan had known then that said time, for him at least, was pretty much there already. Without Rupert, he would be half a person. He couldn't survive alone.
"Ripper..." he whispered into the sheets. "Please don't leave me again."
'Can't get rid of me that easily.' Rupert's voice echoed in Ethan's mind.
Had he imagined that? Was it real? Ethan, with adrenaline-fuelled energy, twisted around to look up urgently at Rupert's face. The features he loved better than his own remained passive, the eyes shut. Almost sobbing with disappointment, Ethan nonetheless refused to give up. He spoke and thought forcefully, "Rupert?" while rubbing his lover's hand vigorously.
'You were expecting someone else in your mind?' The hand under Ethan's moved, slowly turning over to grasp onto Ethan's fingers weakly.
"I thought I was imagining it..." Ethan still was half-convinced that he was. "Oh God, Rupert..." He clasped his free hand over his mouth, trying to stop the desperate sobs of relief from emerging.
Rupert's eyes finally flickered open, and though they were glassy with pain and drugs, they were aware and full of worry and love. He kept to speaking with his thoughts, however. 'You look terrible, love.'
"I... I..." Ethan couldn't speak through the sobs, and his thoughts weren't coherent enough to answer Rupert that way. All he could do was reach out with a shaking hand to touch Rupert's face, as if confirming that he was really there.
Slowly, gingerly, as if testing each movement before making it, Rupert raised his arm, inviting Ethan into his embrace with a barely audible, "Come here," in a voice that was as rough as broken glass.
Pushing aside the drip tube hanging from Rupert's wrist, Ethan moved up the bed, half getting on it, to take the comfort Rupert offered. He was very careful not to touch the areas of Rupert's body that he knew were still badly damaged despite everything Ethan had tried.
Rupert enfolded him in an embrace as well as he could. To communicate, he went back to thoughts. 'You weren't hurt?'
Ethan had done nothing but hurt since the mage had attacked them, but he shook his head. "I'm fine."
He felt more than heard Rupert's sigh of relief at that. 'Good.'
'You stupid selfish bastard.' It had just been a thought, but Ethan knew with appalling certainty that Rupert had heard it.
'I won't apologise,' Rupert replied, seeming to know exactly what Ethan was feeling and why. 'I can't stand by and watch you get hurt or... worse. It's not in me.'
'Don't you understand?' Ethan beseeched him mentally. 'Losing you would be the greatest hurt I could ever receive.'
'You didn't lose me,' his lover pointed out. 'You saved me like I saved you.' Rupert's gaze bore into his own. "It was the only way both of us could have made it," he said aloud in a rumbling whisper.
There was unarguable truth there; Ethan knew it as soon as he heard it. He took a deep, shuddering breath. "I... I killed him," he admitted quietly. "I'm not sorry. I'd do it again."
"Good." Rupert ran fingers through Ethan's hair soothingly. "Saves me having to hunt him down and do it myself."
Ethan nuzzled against Rupert's shoulder. "Jonah and Mary are coming. I couldn't... I did my best, but..." He was so tired. He just wanted to fall asleep in Rupert's arms now that he was back. "Thank you for not leaving me."
He was drifting off to sleep when he heard Rupert reply, "Thank you for not letting me go."
***
It had been quite a strange sensation, Giles thought, staring at the ceiling as he took inner stock. Most of what he remembered of being injured was pain, but that wasn't everything. He remembered feeling his body starting to melt apart under the influence of the dark Chaos, and he remembered Ethan's magic surging through him, healing the damage as soon as it happened. Holding him together.
Holding him here.
He looked down at his lover, half-draped over him and fast asleep. It was an awkward position, and Ethan was sure to be stiff when he woke up, but Giles couldn't bring himself to disturb him.
He wasn't sure if it was because of the drugs that he was certain were dripping into his system from the IV attached to him, or some lingering effect of the Chaos attack, but Giles didn't feel entirely secure in his body. His connection to the physical seemed more tenuous than it had been since... well, since Willow had stolen his magic and his life energy. It wasn't life threatening this time -- he knew what that felt like, and this was nowhere near that bad -- but it was certainly disconcerting to feel as if he would float right out of his body with the smallest of nudges.
It made Ethan's warm sleeping weight against his chest all the more welcome; his lover's presence and touch anchoring him in the here and now until the connections could fully heal.
The door to the small room opened quietly. Giles watched as Xander walked in, balancing various comestibles in his hands. After shutting the door with his arse, Xander looked over at the bed. When he saw that Giles was awake, a huge smile broke on his face, and he hurried over.
"Typical. I leave the room for just a few minutes, and it's then that you decide to wake up."
"Yes, I was just waiting for you to leave before opening my eyes," Giles replied, his voice sounding weak and strange to his own ears.
Xander put down the various things he was carrying on a cabinet top, then walked around to the other side of the bed from Ethan. "How are you feeling?" he asked gently, studying Giles' face. "Has a doctor seen you yet?" Xander looked pale, Giles noticed.
Giles shook his head rather gingerly, having to think for a second on how to perform the action before he managed it. "Don't want a bunch of medical personnel swarming around me and pushing the really important people aside. Not yet."
Xander nodded, a little uncertainly. "There's a Council-approved health team out there just waiting on your word to spring into proddy, pokey action. He asleep?" Xander nodded at Ethan.
"Yes," Giles said softly, looking down at his lover again. "He fair wore himself out keeping me here."
"Ah well, that's one 'cuppa' that won't be drunk then." Xander smiled wryly, sitting on the edge of the bed. "He's, um, well, let me put it this way. I won't be worrying that he means you no good anymore."
Giles smiled a little at that. "Something positive has come out of this then."
Xander's lips twisted in acknowledgement. "You still haven't told me how you're feeling."
"Like I got caught in a whirlwind of kitchen cutlery and have since been shot up with a large number of painkillers," he said wryly.
"Are they working? The drugs?"
"As I'm not screaming in pain from having my body ripped apart and put back together again, I'd say they're working very well."
Xander cringed. "What happened? Do you remember? Ethan wasn't very, um... well, he was a little single-minded, y'know?"
"Yes, I suppose he would be," Giles said softly, moving his fingers in his lover's hair. He took a breath, pleased that it didn't catch or wheeze, and related the details of the attack to Xander. "We were attacked by a Dark Chaos mage. He wasn't forthcoming with explanations of why; perhaps it was as simple as testing himself against mages of different disciplines. His weapons of choice were... well, the best description would be grenades of Dark Chaos. When they went off, whatever they hit was devoured by Chaos -- instant entropy. I managed to deflect most of them to the other side of the train carriage, but some got through."
Xander's expression was very serious. "Could he, um, have known Ethan from the bad old days? Maybe had a grudge about Ethan walking the gay and narrow now?"
Giles shook his head. "Ethan didn't know him."
Xander's gaze fell onto Ethan's head. "The train car you were in was a wreck. The Council cover-up squad is stretched as thin as a very thin thing. From what I can work out, Ethan was using magic wildly to stop people separating you. Once they stopped trying, having decided enough was enough with the concussions, I guess, he managed to get it together enough to have them call Pamela."
"And Pamela took control?" Giles smiled. "I'll have to make sure she gets a raise." He glanced down at Ethan again. "And he fought to stay with me because at the time his magic was all that was keeping me alive."
"Yeah, I kinda got that." Xander stood and walked back around to the cabinet where he drank something from a plastic cup. "Pamela's behind the smooth operation that is now surrounding you. Um, not that you'd know that as part of the whole smooth thing is not having you bothered by it all. And if you make me regret telling you all that by trying to do organise-y things now from your bed, well, they're not feeding you enough of the good stuff down that tube."
"How long was I unconscious?" Giles asked with a frown, just realising then that he had no idea.
"Coming up on twenty-four hours." Xander opened a mars bar and bit in. After some chewing, he said, "I really ought to spread the good news, Giles. There's some very worried people outside. Um, you're not gonna fall apart or anything now that Ethan's asleep are you?"
"No, the Dark Chaos has run its course." He shifted a little, finding it easier to do than he had feared. "All things considered, I feel surprisingly good."
"Hungry?" Xander asked, offering his half-eaten chocolate bar, then clearly thinking better of the gesture and waving at the various packets on the cabinet. "There's lukewarm tea. Mmm, lukewarm tea. What Englishman worth his salt could resist that?" He grinned at Giles.
Giles found himself smiling back; Xander's personality was irrepressible. "I may deny this later, but I've missed having you around."
Xander walked forward a couple of steps and patted Giles' arm where it rested over the top of Ethan. "I'm just glad you're still around to do the soon-to-be-denied missing."
***
"I'm not a sodding cripple," Ethan groused, as Megan tried to help him down the stairs from the hospital front door. "I just slept badly." He pulled his arm away from her and walked stiffly down the steps.
"I promised Giles I'd keep an eye on you," Megan said, stubbornly taking Ethan's arm again.
He flashed the Slayer an annoyed look. "I've agreed to you driving. Isn't that enough?"
"It would be -- if you weren't so pale you're almost transparent."
Ethan sighed deeply and surrendered, letting the girl help him across the car park as if he were a geriatric patient going home for a visit. He knew he must look terrible; he certainly felt it. He'd need to sleep for days to recover the resources drained from him. But that didn't matter. Only Rupert mattered.
Megan had borrowed Ethan's own Council car for the privilege of driving him home. She hadn't had her British license long, so he was looking forward to a nervous trip through London for both of them. A taxi would have probably been wiser, but both the girls were desperate to help, and so he'd agreed.
Megan helped him in, fussing unnecessarily at his seatbelt, before going around and getting behind the wheel. She was quiet as she buckled herself in and started the ignition, putting the car in gear and heading for the car park exit.
"Oh," said Ethan quietly, feeling a little dismayed.
"Oh?" Megan took her eyes off the road for a brief second to glance at him.
He gave her a raw look. "I feel like I've left something very important behind."
Her expression softened and she reached out to pat his arm. "Only because the something very important told you to go home and get some sleep. He'll still be there when you come back."
"I should have stayed. I'm so used to obeying him when he uses that voice..." Which probably wasn't the wisest of things to be sharing with anyone, but Ethan trusted Megan.
"He does have that commanding Head Watcher thing down, even in a hospital bed," Megan agreed.
Ethan wrapped his arms around himself and sat quietly for a while, leaning against the side window and trying hard not to feel anything very much. He realised his depression was a side effect of how thoroughly he had drained himself keeping Rupert alive and that he shouldn't really listen to anything his emotions told him currently.
Megan negotiated Sunday afternoon traffic through Central London with far more confidence than he'd been expecting. Once they were on a longer stretch of road, he asked her, "Did it bring back bad memories for you? The hospital?"
"You mean from when I was hurt?" Megan shook her head. "It's easier being the one that's injured."
"I'll take your word for it," Ethan said with a little laugh, which quickly faded. "Has this been hard for you and Kat?"
"It's hard when people you love are hurt." She thought about it for a minute. "I think it's easier for Kat -- she just goes into super healer mode. She has something she can do to help."
Ethan reached out and patted her shoulder. "You've helped too. You're helping now. And when we get in, you're going to help some more because you're going to cook for me." He managed to summon up something approaching a cheeky grin.
Megan grinned back, her own just a little bit shaky. "Do you have numbers of the local delivery places? Just in case?"
"Yes, but as all I want is just a huge fry up, I'm sure you'll be fine. The more saturated fat and cholesterol the better."
She wrinkled her nose. "Ew."
Ethan laughed, and it was a genuine laugh. "Oh, don't go all Californian on me now. Do I really look as if a little extra fat is going to hurt me?"
"You have a point."
"And it won't hurt you either, not with your frame and Slayer constitution. So no more ew-ing. I speak here as your Watcher, of course. I expect obedience."
"Yes, Ethan," Megan said meekly enough, although she seemed to have developed a tic at the corner of her mouth.
He smiled, but then looked down, Rupert's absence hitting him again with renewed pain. His husband was doing well. The coven healers had arrived, and it had been made abundantly clear that Rupert worrying about Ethan was a hindrance to his recovery. Ethan wasn't needed there, so he'd agreed to leave, but being away from his partner hurt.
Closing back in on himself, Ethan returned to silence for the rest of the journey, only stirring as Megan struggled a little to park outside their front door. "You're not making the most of the power-steering, dear."
"Car's bigger than I'm used to," she muttered absently, as she wrestled it into the parking spot.
Obediently, and maybe because he felt tired enough to believe he really needed it, Ethan waited for Megan to come round to his door and help him out of the car. He unlocked the front door, and Megan tried to urge him inside, but Ethan stared glumly into the house that didn't contain Rupert and stayed frozen on the doorstep. "Take me back."
Megan frowned, then stepped around him into the house. She turned back to him and took his hands in hers, tugging gently. "At least let me cook you some fatty high cholesterol food first. If you still want to go back after that, I'll take you."
Very reluctantly, he allowed himself to be pulled in and helped over to the sofa where he more or less crumpled into one side of it, pulling his legs up under him. Megan hesitated halfway between the kitchen and him and finally came back over, sitting down on the sofa beside him and hugging him.
"He's going to be just fine."
"This time," Ethan said bleakly, immediately wishing he could take the words back.
Megan was silent for a long moment, watching him. "When I got hurt," she finally said, "when it first happened, I thought about it happening it again, how I would handle it and what would happen if I wasn't so lucky a second time. But the thoughts, the fear... it got better."
Ethan didn't reply, not wanting to infect the Slayer with his pessimism. The future didn't look very rosy to him. Death was inevitable for them all, and the chances were that it would be sooner rather than later for one or more of them.
"Giles isn't going to leave you," Megan told him. "He didn't this time; he isn't in the future."
"There should be everything you need in the fridge," Ethan said after further silence. "Bacon, eggs, tomatoes, mushrooms... oh, and I think there's some hashbrowns in the freezer."
Megan sighed and got up. She paused though at the kitchen door. "Do you really think you should be mourning him when he's going to be fine?"
"Ouch," he replied succinctly. He curled up more tightly and closed his eyes.
With another sigh, Megan disappeared into the kitchen.
***
Giles watched Megan shepherd Ethan out of his room and couldn't stop the irrational stab of guilt at sending his lover away.
Ethan needed a break away from this, needed rest and sustenance and a chance to recharge. But the look on Ethan's face when he'd told him to go... Well, Giles felt like a bully.
"Are you in pain?" Kat asked, concerned. Jonah and Mary had left temporarily to restore their energies somewhat with lunch in the hospital canteen, so Giles was alone now with the Slayer. She took his wrist and began to check his pulse.
Giles smiled at her actions; Kat had been helping out the healers and had developed quite a professional demeanour when it came to these sorts of things. "I'm as comfortable as could be expected," he reassured her. "I'm just worried about Ethan."
Kat nodded. "He looks kinda bad. Jonah said that he, um, used too much of himself."
"He used everything he had," Giles said softly.
She looked sharply at him. "Will he get it back?"
"Oh yes," he said quickly. "With enough time and rest. And if I can stop him from continuing to feed me energy."
"He doesn't need to now that Jonah and Mary are here, does he? I'm glad Megan's with him." She let go of his wrist and made a note on a clipboard the healers had bought with them, then flicked through the pages. "Jeez, Giles. That Chaos guy really... " She stopped, clearly upset for all that she was trying to maintain a professional air.
"Yes, he did." He reached out for her hand, squeezing it lightly. "But I'm going to be fine."
"Your leg..."
Giles stopped himself from glancing down at the heavily bandaged limb, but only barely. "That will take a bit longer to recover from," he admitted.
Ethan's pattern-restoration based healing had concentrated on the life-threatening injuries in Giles' head and torso, and by the time the Chaos had gone from Giles' body, the ripped up flesh of his leg was too established for Ethan to be able to even start mending it.
Kat smiled a little shakily at him. "We'll have to get you a really neat walking stick. Like with a sword inside it or something."
"Actually, I think I might have one of those squirreled away somewhere. Bought more for the sword than the walking stick, but definitely usable." He tried to keep his voice light and the subject less serious in an effort to cheer Kat. Giles was under no illusions, however, about the fact that it was going to be a long and painful road back to having full use of his leg again.
"Shame we can't magically transfer you some of our Slayer healing," she said, putting the clipboard down. "We wished we'd known it was possible to donate lifeforce like Xander did; Megan and me would both have volunteered."
Giles froze. "Xander did what?" The man's unnatural pallor was suddenly making more sense.
"Um, oops?" Kat smiled worriedly. "I thought you knew."
"No." And Giles knew why the information had been kept from him -- it had been a damned fool thing to do. What Ethan had been doing had been dangerous enough, but the risks involved in sharing lifeforce were just too high. "I never would have allowed it if I'd been awake."
"Oh." Kat sat down on the edge of the bed and looked earnestly at Giles. "Don't be angry with him? He was really happy to have been able to help, and you woke up like immediately afterwards, so it was good really, wasn't it?"
"A successful outcome doesn't lessen the chance he took." But he softened his voice and expression a little as he added, "I am grateful though."
"He told us a bit about other times you've been hurt..."
Giles twisted his mouth in wry amusement. "I did have a distressing habit of getting hit on the head when I was in America. At least I managed to avoid that this time."
She frowned, but didn't say anything, instead looking down and playing with the edge of the sheet.
"Kat?" Reaching out, Giles took her hand.
"It's just it's all so... dangerous, isn't it? I mean, first there was Megan. Now this. And there's been lots of other 'this's that I didn't know about. And there's Xander's eye. Giles, I..." She looked at him a little helplessly, but then added. "I shouldn't be talking to you about this. Not 'til you're better. I'm sorry."
"There's nothing wrong with my mind," Giles pointed out, trying to urge her to continue. Judging by what Ethan had told him in Devon, something had been bothering Kat for a while, and if this had brought her to the point she could articulate it, then it wasn't all bad.
She stared at him with big worried eyes. Eventually, she said, "I'm not sure I wanna be a part of this anymore. Not from the same side of things anyway. I kinda talked to Ethan about it before, but... well, I guess I didn't really have any alternatives then like I do now."
It wasn't unexpected; people getting injured seemed to affect Kat more than it did others. "If you could do anything you wanted, what would you choose?" he asked.
The answer came quickly and was said with confidence. "I'd like to study with Mary and Jonah. I want to become a healer."
Giles smiled; he'd have been surprised if she had answered any other way. "I think you'd be very good at it." She didn't look as happy as he'd hoped at his accepting praise. Luckily, he'd been making tentative plans for this sort of situation since he started rebuilding the Council. It looked like it might be time to put them into effect. "I'd like to make you a proposition, Katherine," he said formally.
Her eyes widened. "Um, proposition?"
He nodded. "I've been meaning to see what we could do about giving Slayers a chance at... specialisation -- if they want. Would you be willing to be my guinea pig?"
"Um, maybe? What would it involve?"
"You go to Devon and train with Jonah and Mary, and perhaps, in a few years, go to university to study medicine. The Council will cover all of your costs. But you also have to keep up some level of Slayer training. Ultimately, you'll be a new type of Slayer. If the typical Slayer is a soldier, then you'd be the medic assigned to the platoon."
Giles found himself fighting not to wince as Kat's hand tightened around his with Slayer strength. "Are you serious?"
"I'm very serious," he told her. "We need to create a whole new way of organising Slayers and we have to start somewhere. This would be the ideal place to start."
She relaxed her grip, apparently realising it was too hard. "Giles, I... I can't imagine anything I'd like more. Thank you! I didn't want to go back to America and leave you guys, but my parents couldn't afford to keep me here without the Council funding. Oh, this is so cool!"
Giles smiled. "I'm glad to see you're so enthusiastic about it." He felt a great deal of satisfaction; flat on his back in a hospital bed, and he'd managed to take the first important step to make real changes. Of course, he still had an uphill battle getting it made official Council policy, but it was a battle that his current physical condition shouldn't hamper. He found himself actually looking forward to it.
Kat's eyes were wide and sparkling, and she waved her hands around excitedly, appearing, just for those few seconds, to be younger than her seventeen years. "Oh, I can't wait to tell Megan. And Xander too."
"I'll talk to Jonah and Mary, and see what we can arrange." He paused and warned, "It may take a bit of time to set up, but we will get you the training you need."