As the metal links clatter to the cold floor, Nick and Andy go completely still.

The vibrations shuddering through their skin, little ant steps of twitching muscles, bunch and release under the flood of adrenaline, cease and they don't dare draw in a new breath.

(they can't breathe through this thick hope, swirling around their throats like a cat, digging in claws and there's no getting it off now)

Tentative, reborn with a searing elation, she wiggles her foot experimentally, ignoring the way tension bunches and rolls through the room at the sight of blistered and abraded skin that pokes its presence around the edges of the remaining metal cuff as it shifts with the movement. She wants nothing more in that moment to spring to her feet and bolt through the open door just across from her and the need surges like an angry ocean in her chest.

(her body might not have the strength to move very much anymore, but she will be damned if she doesn't walk through on her own two feet)

Instead, she clutches Nick's hand even tighter and glares daggers at Luke, who has yet to break his staring contact with the damage and the metal around her ankle. "Now Nick," she hisses, a strange fear of being separated drawing fire into her words. Nick hums in accord, the small lilt rumbling through both of them, sparks in his eyes.

(a storm tumbling over itself, brewing deadlier and stronger by the second, restraint wearing thin, they want out)

They're all wild eyes and sharp limbs as they wait, moving in a symbiosis now, a gentle rocking as they can't hold themselves still any longer. They don't care about the comments and gentle ministrations from the medics, they don't matter. In this moment, very little matters, just the drawing of their next breaths, the way they lean on each other, and how Nick is only seconds away from having his chain cut.

Having missed the way Luke, along with Gail and Sam, flinched at her harsh demand, Nick and Andy are intent on the crowbar as it's fitted against the weak link on Nick's chain. As the female medic dabs at the bits of abraded flesh she can get at that poke about the top of the metal cuff, Andy doesn't react even as a cool relief begins to creep in, the thin layer of ointment providing a long awaited numbing from the pain, but she can't enjoy it, not while Nick is still trapped. She presses closer.

She trills, a soft chirp of almost, almost into the rough fabric of the blanket wrapped around Nick's shoulders. His whisper quiet sigh tells her more than anyone else knows.

(hope, relief, free, fear, free)

The ghost of tears lurk in both their eyes.

With another push of muscle and an ear-wrenching scrape of metal protesting its abuse, Luke powers through the last bit of resistance the chain offers and suddenly, Nick is free.

For a long second, the two simply stare with wild eyes and jittering breaths.

There's something not quite right in their minds; they both feel it, the creeping grey, a thick mist trickling into their brains as they sit there, battered back and forth and back and forth by surges of emotions and sensations and thoughts that they can't control. They've found the razor edge of where sanity balances.

(they aren't sane, not truly, they haven't tumbled over the edge yet. but with this culmination of events, so charged and powerful, they hover dangerously)

They are alone in that room, their prison, in that moment. The medics, Sam, Gail, and Luke don't matter, they don't exist, even though they are the harbingers of this moment. All that matters is one another and how they are no longer physically bound to this room.

With a jolt, their attention turns away from the abandoned chains on the concrete floor, and to the other. As they look at each other, overlooking the hollow cheeks and sickly pallor, the way their skin seems to hang off their bones and how their eyes are hidden back deep in their skulls, all they see is the reason they haven't gone entirely mad just yet. Nick and Andy have had each other through this entire ordeal and now, they are about to leave it behind.

One of the medics is speaking to them, soft words with an undercurrent of urgency, but neither care enough to register what is being said.

Andy is the first to release her grip on Sam's pant leg, untangling her fingers from the fabric and letting her anchor slip away.

She doesn't need it any more.

After a long second, Nick follows suit, disconnecting from Gail and pulling closer to Andy.

As they draw into themselves, that thick grey mist that roils around their heads like marbles at a children's clutches and obscures their vision until all Nick and Andy are capable of seeing is the open maw of the doorway and the dark stretch of hallway beyond it. They don't know what lies through the door, they never saw how they got their and only remember waking up in the prison, but it calls to them so loudly, they can't think in any means rationally through the buzz.

It's time.

They get their legs under them easily enough, drawing the heavy blankets tighter around their shoulders like cloaks as they do.

(the clothes they have been left in here with have long rotted off their bodies, rips and tears and worn thin from trying to wash them clean in the sink, desperate to feel something clean against unwashed skin, only scraps remains, tangible memories bundled up in the corner of the washroom like the forgotten rags they have become)

Speaking in touches and sighs, as one, they move to stand.

When hands come at them from all directions, both snarl and hiss, fire flashing angrily in their gaze even as they bare their teeth.

They will do this.

They will walk out of their prison unassisted.

The arrangement of reaching hands withdraw in surprise, and stay back when warnings continue to rumble in Nick's chest and Andy hisses like a cornered cat, ready to lash out with broken nails should someone try to stop them.

(that silken strand of freedom has expanded, growing talons and pulling them into its grip, they can't see through it. no one else matters, nothing else matters, but walking out that door)

When Luke steps in front of them to try to halt their progress, his light eyes taking in how they sway dangerously with each step and not understanding that this is something non-negotiable, they draw up short, terrible protests spearing from their lips.

"We are walking out," Andy snarls, face twisting horrifically as she speaks, the desperation turning into rage. "So move."

Whether Luke understands the words themselves or not, he does understand the urgency and venom in Andy's tone and moves. He steps to the side, hands up in a sign of peace, and to Nick and Andy, he disappears into the grey.

When they take those last few steps to cross the threshold, the metal cuff that still rests heavily on their ankles, Nick and Andy pause just outside the doorway and look at each other once again.

(delight, calm, light)

And they begin to laugh.

It's a garish sound coming from their abused throats, but it is pure and joyous and suddenly, for an instant, with happiness painted onto their faces and into the crease of their eyes, the two long lost officers almost look whole.

A/N: So I lost my rough notes for this that held most of the story arc and now I get to play, " what the hell was I planning on doing with this? "

Regardless, enjoy and thanks for sticking with it.

Hearts always, A.