He said little in the time before his transport arrived; he was afraid that if he spoke it would be to beg to stay, to ask if perhaps this wasn't a sure thing and if she would forgive him for deciding not to go. She stayed by his side and he held her hand, kissed her when he couldn't help himself, and tried not to meet her eyes, for any indication from her that she didn't want him to leave would have been reason enough to abandon the whole thing.

By the time the transport arrived, Jor had almost talked himself into staying. But he had committed to this, he reprimanded himself over and over, and after all she'd done for Kat and all she'd done for him, the least he could do was keep his promise.

He waved to her as they drove away, even managed a wink and a smile at Kat, who hovered in the doorway to the house and watched him with a look even more intense than Wick's, and just like that, Jor was gone.

Once he realized that there was no turning back, Jor set about making the best of what he'd been expecting to be a tough situation. It didn't turn out to be very tough at all. Gregarious by nature, he managed to befriend four of his seatmates and several other passengers aboard his plane by the time they reached the central hub in D.C. Over the course of the next flight to Nebraska, he played seventeen hands of poker, lost sixteen of them, had an interesting conversation about football (a sport that Jor decided he would like to try someday), and discovered that he knew three of the new guards, all of whom he'd gone to Command School with and one who'd even been in his AIT.

It was a long drive to Charybdis, and most of the passengers aboard the transport slept; Jor did not, and had time to worry again. He thought of all the diagrams Wick had shown him, and worried that the place was simply too well guarded to allow their escape to work. He thought of all the stories Kat had told him, and worried that it would be impossible to reach Mode anyway, with all the psychopaths running about. He thought that this had to be the worse idea he'd ever had, even worse than the time he and Kat had tried to see who could eat the most pies, and mentally berated himself for being a foolish idiot for hours until they reached the front gates of Charybdis.

Then his worry turned to fear, and he and other guards exchanged looks that said What the hell are we doing here? before the gates opened and they were shuttled inside.

Much in the same way that his M.E. training had gone, the new guards were immediately assigned partners. Jor's partner turned out to be another CS grad named Wille (pronounced Wily, not Willy, and get it right or else, Windhaven) who was a few years older than him but knew many of the same people. They were shown to their quarters (not bad, considering that they were living in a mental institution compound), taken on a tour around the guard's facilities (surprisingly nice, with a gym and even a pool), introduced to the other guards, security and administrative staff (all normal people, not too friendly but who could expect them to be) and eventually settled in to be given their orientation.

Orientation actually lasted an entire week; there were a lot of security issues to go over and so many rules and guidelines and plans in place that the other guards joked that if they'd wanted to study they would have stayed in school. The next three weeks were then spent in rotations, each new guard spending time in the various duty locations-- from outside wall to front gate to, as Jor was pleased to find, shipping dock-- and on the last day they were allowed to put in their preference for assignment. Everyone seemed to want the more strenuous duty posts, and no one objected when Jor generously offered to take the vacant shipping dock post. In fact, the supervisor shook his hand and thanked him for "Taking one for the team, Windhaven," and Jor just quietly smiled and got to work.

One month in, and things were already falling into place.

Life here was all about routine, and Jor took to it readily and with little complaint. It was not unduly exciting, but after quite a few years of tumultuous school life and the past year of having to live with Kat, he found the change was welcome. There was duty to be done during the day, the occasional drill (Jor liked the ones with riot gear and suppression guns and lots of shouting the best), and then free time at night. He liked the other men on his shift; it hadn't been since Elisabeta that he'd had the chance to spend time with other soldiers, and he enjoyed watching sports and playing cards with people more like himself.

When the work became dull he just reminded himself that it was all part of a game and that he, in some respect, could be said to be a spy, and it made it tolerable, if not mildly exciting. When the nights became long, he filled them with poker hands and laps in the pool, and the camaraderie of his fellow guards distracted him enough that missing Wick was bearable instead of consuming. And when he thought of her so much that nothing could distract him, he amused himself with sending her little emails and letters, telling her how his day went and that he loved her.

Two months in, then one day a message arrived and Jor knew it was time.

-The shipment will be from Nexus Scientific Equipment,- the message said. -It is due to arrive in one week. Just be sure it passes through receiving, and leave the rest to us.-

He nodded to himself, checked his schedule to make sure he'd be on duty that day, and then reread the end of the message.

-I love you.-

Inside, they had a small supply of meal packs and water, and a set of three moderately-sized oxygen bottles. These were a reserve, in case the filter malfunctioned, assuming the filter malfunctioned on the way back after a good deal of their journey was behind them. There wasn't enough room for the kind of preparation Wick wanted to make, but she'd done what she could. There were two tranquilizer pistols, fully loaded, with twelve extra rounds for each weapon. Kat wore her knife, and Wick wore a regular firearm, unloaded. There was a small box of limited medical supplies and automatic ice packs and heating packs, and stored in the base of the medical kit Wick had carefully packed a loaded clip for her pistol and enough AmaBet for some very creative backup planning. Just in case.

After determining that she was far outclassed, and her help unnecessary, Kat smiled and disappeared. It took a great effort for her not to hover over everything. In all the time she'd known him, Kat had considered no one save herself capable of protecting Mode. As she walked toward the door, she realized that Wick was now capable too, and it was this realization that allowed her to leave. She trusted Wick to protect Mode.

She stayed in the woods for those weeks, only returning to the house when hunger or loneliness deemed it necessary. She used the time away to hone her anger to a single, focused point, and it gave her a burning intensity, an unshakeable purpose. Whenever she reappeared, Wick would show her the progress, tell her of new plans, and oftentimes she had questions. In a rare turn of events, Kat answered everything to the best of her abilities. It was if she had also realized that where once Wick had been a means to an end, a tool to save Mode, Wick was now using her, and Kat did not have second thoughts about answering.

And then, like a blink of an eye, it was time.

Her excitement rose to a fevered pitch as they made final preparations, packing what they needed into the box they would use for access into Charybdis. Then, as the lid thudded shut, that same excitement peaked, and Kat made a sharp exhale of breath and slumped against the wall.

Now all those promises I made will come true. Now it's time to get you back.

Wick shifted uncomfortably beside her, and Kat smiled in the dark. They remained silent for a long time as the box was lifted and loaded, and it was only when the smooth swaying of driving told them they were safe did she reach over to touch Wick's hand. Her sister looked at her, and even in the dim light Kat could see the uncertainty in her eyes.

Wick had always held confidence in her own ability to do whatever it was that she needed to do, provided it was physically possible. Her mind demanded and her body complied, if capable. If something was particularly distasteful or dangerous she preferred to use other people instead, but when it came down to it she preferred to do as much as possible by herself. It greatly reduced the risk of error and the number of variables she had to depend upon for a plan to succeed. Now she was depending not only on herself but on four other people - Katera, Jor, the attendant and Mode - to act using the guidelines she'd laid out for them, and that made it much less appealing to her than if she'd been able to do it on her own. If one of the others faltered or made a critical misstep...

"I'm going to stay in here until they leave the box in the infirmary. Then we're going to get out, send a message to James," this last accompanied only by a slight tightening of her features, "And then I'll hide in the infirmary and you'll hide back in the box until he comes to see."

She looked to Wick for confirmation, and when the girl nodded, Kat grew a little anticipatory smile. "Then I'm going to jump him, right, tell him he's going to get Mode and bring him back without saying a word to anyone, and that if he doesn't then I get to kill him, right?" There was a lilt at the end of her sentence to indicate a question, but Kat wasn't looking for an answer. "But he won't. He won't say no or sound any alarms on us." There was almost a hint of disappointment in her voice. "He'll bring Mode back, and once he's safe in the box then we'll drug James and throw him somewhere and you'll send a message that the equipment is ready and we'll hide again, and then they'll send us home."

She finished "they'll send us home" with the upmost satisfaction, and settled in more comfortably in her corner. There was considerably less-- alright, absolutely none-- of the hand-to-hand combat she'd vaguely been looking forward to, but Wick had early on pointed out that it was more dangerous than reasonable, and Kat had conceded the point. The prospect of James, however, was an unexpected bonus, and not for the last time Kat tilted her head at Wick and asked, just to be certain.

Kat concluded the bare bones version of the plan. "Are you sure it's James?"

Wick blinked. "It's the same person - or was, as of this morning - as the picture I showed you. James Thompson." Kat looked at her silently and then looked away, and Wick peered at her through the dark, trying to read her sister's expression and failing. It was much the same reaction she'd gotten when she first showed Kat the name and the picture, and after a few attempts Wick had ceased to try to get more information out of her. Despite the danger inherent in all aspects of her plan, it was Kat's omission of the details of her relationship with this Thompson that caused her the most frustration. She wished it had been a stranger, though it was probably a plus if it was someone who already knew of what Kat was capable of. She couldn't plan around a dynamic she didn't understand. Had they been enemies? Lovers? Neither of those seemed likely; Thompson was part of the staff.

It was "just someone I knew," according to Kat, and that was all her sister ever had to say on the subject.

Wick sighed and leaned back against the box wall and tried to get some sleep.

Kat shook her awake when they came to the first stop. There were three scheduled stops before Charybdis. The first - this one - was the transfer to the cargo plane. The second would be the transfer from the plane to the ground vehicle. The third would be the initial inspection outside Charybdis...and the fourth, hopefully, would be Jorry, waving them through. If not, the last stop might be a very long one. Or not long at all, depending on what Kat did if she saw they were compromised.

She stood up and strapped herself back into the harness, and glanced over at Kat. The other woman was already wearing the restraints, and she was about to ask if Kat had taken them off at all when the box they were in was shifted and then moved. She braced.

The box tilted alarmingly, and she gasped as the impact came a lot harder and more abruptly than she had expected, painful vibrations making her bones sing. Kat hissed, and Wick opened her eyes in the dim light to see that Kat was now suspended above her, and wondered which of them had gotten the worst of it.

The rest of the cargo was loaded, and the plane engines roared. In the cargo area it was deafening, but Wick stayed quiet as they felt the plane taxi and pause, taxi and pause. When it finally crawled into the air and made it relatively certain that they wouldn't be moved any more in the near future, she unfastened her restraints and then leaned up to unfasten Kat's. It was a good harness, and her sister appeared unhurt. Wick helped her down onto her own side that now constituted the floor.

Wick grinned at her, and Kat grinned back. It felt good to smile. They had spent over a year together, but in the last few months neither had had much reason to be happy; it was all work, and there was that angry tension between them. Now that they were under way, it was almost a matter of fate, and for the time it took to travel to Charybdis neither had responsibility. Kat's smile grew, before she settled back down again and enjoyed this little lull before the storm.

It was a long plane ride, and both of them slept. Occasionally Kat would wake and experience a brief moment of panic, locked in a small, black box, but she would hear Wick breathing quietly beside her and relax enough to sleep again. When the second transfer came, both of them were prepared, and there was not quite so much being tossed about. The drive to Charybdis was pleasant in comparison to the flight, and they ran over the plan once more, Kat full of redundant questions and beginning to become excited again.

And then they reached Charybdis.

Now it was the time for silence, and Kat didn't realize she was holding her breath until her chest began to burn. Tension and angry anticipation wound itself through her limbs, and in the dark her eyes were dangerously wide, her teeth bared. Every little movement and noise caught her attention, and she listened to everything; the creak of the truck, the muffled voices outside, and finally, to her relief, the okay to pass through.

Wick exhaled quietly as the truck began to move again, and they both remained wordless as there was movement and shifting and another heavy impact as the box hit the floor. There was another moment of almost unbearable terror as bootsteps approached them, and then Wick made a subvocal whisper of recognition, and Kat dug her nails into the palms of her hands.

"The invoice says Nexus Scientific Equipment," came Jor's voice. "We're supposed to leave it for the techs in the upper ward second infirmary. They'll call us when it's time to ship back out, right?"

Another voice answered, and then Jor spoke again. "Alright. Let's get it up there before we finish the rest of this shipment. The service order said they want it as soon as it arrives."

There was more moving about as their box was loaded, accompanied by several admonishments to be careful, it was expensive equipment, and Kat winked at Wick at that last. It didn't take more than a few minutes before they were set back down again, and soon after the sound of the door closing and bootsteps had faded away.

They waited, for a long time, so long that Kat began to invent new things to worry about as she sat in the dark and remained silent. Several times she glanced toward the other woman, impatient for the go-ahead, but Wick would only look at her watch and then shake her head. So Kat sat there. Maybe she slept, maybe she didn't, and time alternated between what seemed like hours and then only minutes, and finally when she couldn't take it any longer she poked Wick to get her attention and mouthed her request.

"Now?"

THOMPSON, JAMES H
***EMERGENCY PRIORITY***
RE: Nathan Terrence, PT#010926
Maitland is unavailable. Report to infirmary seven for immediate consultation regarding patient. Bring all related documentation and therapy notation.
- C. Reynolds, MD
***EMERGENCY PRIORITY***

He blinked in confusion and stumbled out of his bunk and into the bathing nook to splash water on his face. That woke him up some, and he pulled on his clothes as quickly as he could while his computer was compiling all the information he had on Terrence into a report. He was already moving down the hallway with the disk in hand before it occurred to him to wonder what had happened and why they needed his data. He began to get worried. He'd warned Maitland from the beginning that the constant nervous stimulation was going to cause serious problems down the line. Twitchers weren't for constant use; they were for temporary restraint, and there was no telling what kind of damage he was about to find out about.

The infirmary door slid open, and he stepped inside. There was a single bed curtained off, and no staff immediately in evidence, and so he proceeded to the occupied station and pulled the curtain aside, steeling himself for the worst.

Something hit him in the stomach, and a hard fist punched him in the mouth. He tried to counter and suffered another blow to his midsection, one that knocked his breath out and doubled him over. A heel kicked into the back of his knee and he went down hard, and then there was weight on him, pinning him to the floor. Something cold and sharp cut slightly into his neck in an itchy line, and he gasped in shock and fear and tried to see beyond the black at the edges of his vision to the creature who now sat on his chest like a bird of prey. He started to move and the blade dug in alarmingly, and he made a tiny whimper of protest and lay still, blinking to clear his eyes.

When they did clear, they also went wide, and he stared up at the adult version of the girl he'd known so briefly so long ago. Her name came to his lips uncertainly.

"Ka...Kat? Katera?"

It had been so long since she'd seen him last, since he'd left her in those lonely, frightened weeks before her parole came through. He was much older now, tired lines around his eyes and mouth just like she had, and there was a small trickle of blood at the corner of his lip where she'd hit him. She wiped it away with the tip of her finger, internally reprimanding herself for making him bleed and with the old, old worry that if someone noticed him injured then she could get in trouble.

That thought made her eyes narrow, and suddenly she remembered another time like this, a time without the knife, and her smile became vicious and full of teeth.

"Hello, James!" she chirped cheerfully, still with that shark-grin on her face. His eyes widened even more, and Kat leaned over him until he tried to move away, but the dagger stopped his retreat. He whimpered again, and she shook her head reprovingly. "Aren't you going to ask me what I'm doing here?"

He swallowed heavily, and she watched a little drop of blood roll down the edge of the blade as she waited for his question. "What... what are you doing here?" he asked breathlessly, and she rolled her eyes. "I'm here to take Mode back, of course," she explained patiently, as if he should have known the answer all along. "Now you're supposed to ask, but how am I going to do that?"

"How are you going to do that?"

"I did," she hissed, baring her teeth, her eyes narrow and furious. "I did and you left me, but you're not leaving so easy this time." He started to speak again and she hit him across the face, forgetting her dagger and clawing him instead. The scratches on his cheek and the look in his eyes was like the first time, and her lips twisted down at the corners in disgust. "I hate you."

"Katera..."

"No." It was a woman's voice, a little too low to be Kat's. The tone was firm and soothing at the same time, and when he opened his eyes to see who was talking the boot came back down almost tenderly on the side of his head, blocking his vision and keeping him from rising without doing any real damage.

He could hear fast breathing someplace else in the room, but the newcomer drew most of his attention.

"Can you hear me, James?"

The voice was calm and cold now, and when he heard a round being chambered he tried to nod, failed, and whispered that he did.

"Kat has some instructions for you. If you would like to survive this experience, I would suggest you do what she asks you to do. I am going to let you up now, and I want you to stay exactly where you are until Kat tells you to get up. Is this also clear?"

Then, quite abruptly, someone grabbed her around the waist and threw her off of James, and she hit the floor with a hiss. Wick was standing over James now, her boot on his head and a pistol in hand, and Kat stared at the gun with jealous eyes.

Not fair...

"Kat has some instructions for you," Wick was saying, with a very pointed look in her direction, and Kat swallowed the anger back down and struggled for control. She was watching his prone form with longing, a hungry lust to hurt him like he'd hurt her, and an equally strong memory of when she was sixteen and thought he'd keep her safe from this place, and she had to turn away.

A hand touched her shoulder, and she looked up to see Wick over her now. There was something different in her eyes, almost like understanding, and Kat hated her for overhearing, hated her for knowing. She swallowed this hate down, too, nodded once and returned her gaze to where James lay on the floor.

It took a moment to find her voice, but when it came it was just as cold, just as calm as Wick's had been. "You're going to go to Mode's room and bring him back here. I don't care how you do it. I don't care what you have to tell the guards." She crawled across the floor to him, but didn't touch him this time. "But you won't tell them about us, James, or set any alarms or do anything to stop me, do you understand?"

He nodded, and Kat's voice dropped to a whisper. "Because if you do, I'll know, and I will kill you. Even if it's the last thing I do. No one will stop me before you die, do you understand that?"

Then she stood and nodded to Wick. The other girl hid herself again, and when she was sure she was alone, Kat kicked him in the side. "We're going to be watching you on the cameras the entire time. I'm going to know if you don't do exactly as I say. Now get up and bring Mode."

He hesitated before Nathan's cell. Common sense said to alert the closest guard and to do it now. It wasn't likely that Kat could get through those three to him, was it?

He remembered Kat's eyes, and keyed open the cell. There has to be another way. There has to.

Nathan was asleep when James entered. His eyes fluttered open uncoordinatedly when James touched his arm, but other than attempting to focus on him Nathan didn't move at all. Free of the cameras, James patted Nathan's shoulder in a reassuring fashion and then went to the small locked cabinet set into the wall. The door popped open after he entered the correct code, and he withdrew the injection gun and a vial to load it with. Nathan's eyes were closed when he returned, but they opened briefly and looked to him when James injected him with the sedative. James nodded, and the lids fell closed again, and did not flutter again.

James unlocked the wheels on Nathan's bed and made sure his patient was secured and then wheeled him through the doorway and out into the hall.

Once she sees his condition...she can't be blind. She won't think he can recover without medical aid, no matter what that other one says.

...who was the other one? Another former patient, maybe. No one else would be crazy enough to try to break into Charybdis.

He walked the path back the same way he'd come, and no one batted an eyelid at him, and he pushed the bed into the infirmary where Katera was waiting for him. She turned away from the camera screens to face him as he entered, and he locked the wheels and patted the unconscious Nathan on the shoulder once more, an absent gesture of concern.

No, no, you have to bring him, please...

He didn't disobey her, and her shoulders slumped in relief as she watched him wheel Mode into the hall and return to the infirmary. When the door opened behind her, she turned around to face him, but had eyes only for Mode.

My love...

For the first few seconds she thought he was dead. He had to be. The once-powerful frame was thin and wasted, and his handsome face was gaunt, dark circles around his closed eyes and his skin so pale. Her heart caught in her throat and she stepped forward, just one step, but it was enough. His fingertips twitched, and his chest rose and fell, just a tiny movement, and she exhaled sharply and flicked her gaze up to James, fury in her eyes.

"You did this to him," she spat accusingly, advancing on him slowly. "You were supposed to take care of him, and this is just as bad as the labs." James took one look at her expression and started to back away, circling around the other side of Mode's unconscious form. "Katera, I didn't--"

Kat growled. "Where's the key. I want the key to the twitchers." She cut off his escape and began to back him into a corner, her hand extended. "Give it to me."

And he did. He held it out to her, but the moment her fingers closed around it he tried to touch her, and she was on him in an instant. They collided with the wall as she threw herself at him, and then they were on the floor, James trying to fight her off and Kat hitting him, hitting him, a steady thwack thwack as she punished him for hurting Mode. Someone was making tortured sobbing noises as she beat him, and it was Kat.

Wick stopped her before she could kill him. In actuality, she shot James with a tranq dart and he fell unconscious, and Kat stopped herself. It took effort, a great effort, and she didn't meet Wick's gaze when she finally tore herself away from his bloody body on the floor and stood. Wick didn't say anything, either. Instead she set about preparing the box for their departure, and Kat shuffled her way across the room to Mode's side.

He looked worse up close, and she had to close her eyes and take a deep breath before she could continue. The twitchers came off easily with the key, and Kat rubbed uselessly at his wrists and brushed the hair back from his forehead, but he didn't awaken.

"Hurry." This from Wick. Kat nodded. They managed to lift him together and get him into the box, and Kat was silently grateful he was so thin, otherwise they might not have been able to move him. Then there were little tasks to be taken care of; the bed to set in a corner with a curtain drawn, the blood to wipe from the floor, James' body to drag into an empty closet and hide. They adjusted the weights on the box and strapped Mode's unconscious form in, organized their supplies, and last, Wick sent a message to the shipping department, informing them of the completion of maintenance in the upper ward second infirmary and requesting the equipment to be shipped back to the manufacturer.

And then it was time to leave.

Wick climbed in beside her, and Kat hefted the lid and clamped it down into place with a vicious yank on the lock. They hurriedly buckled their restraints, and with Wick on one side, and Kat on the other, holding tightly onto Mode, they waited.

It went as smoothly as before. The door opened and footsteps approached, and there were voices as their box was lifted and carried from the infirmary. There was the same breathless terror as the box was inspected in the shipping bay, but they were waived through without event, and loaded once more onto a truck. Kat smiled in the dark at Wick as they began to move, but remained silent until over two hours later, when they were safely aboard the cargo plane and in the air.

Wick smiled at her this time, and Kat grabbed her hand, tightened her fingers into her sister's and squeezed.

It relieved her that Kat stopped attacking when James stopped moving, though it looked like it hurt her to do so. Wick had planned this entire venture hoping that no one had to die to bring Nathan back to his wife, and for that hope to be dashed because Kat had no self-control would have made her angry. As it was, James didn't look too good when Wick put him into the supply closet it with Kat's none-too-gentle help, and she tried to leave him in a relatively comfortable position. He would suffer enough when he woke up without risking the loss of a limb due to extended lack of circulation.

Nathan was relatively easy for them to move, and Kat assisted her in first placing him on one of the diagnostic beds to get his weight and then strapping him carefully into the padded crate they had arrived in. He hung in the restraints like a dead man, and only the lack of rigor mortis and the shallow breathing kept that appearance at bay. Wick had Kat hold him up while she took out the appropriate amount of weight from the bottom and sides of the crate and stored it on the shelf above James. She closed the door to the closet entirely, but taped one of the ten gram weight bars across the latch so that it couldn't lock. James didn't deserve to die for assisting them.

Once everything had been cleaned up and she'd sent the shipping instructions to the quartermaster to arrange the crate's departure, and then climbed back into the crate. It was almost forty five minutes alone in the dark, for Kat and Nathan were both beyond speech at the moment for one reason or another. Wick felt like an intruder, but there was nothing to be done for it.

The guards came to move them at last, and Wick was quietly thankful for the circulation fan that covered the noise of Nathan's breathing. Jor's voice was not among them this time. They'd taken too long. He was off shift, perhaps. Thankfully, even without his interference the crate was transferred to the back of the transport vehicle without incident, and they were upright until they were moved to the cargo plane. That complicated things; Nathan was on his back now, but Kat and Wick had to unstrap, and that left Wick in contact with Nathan. That was more disquieting than she'd imagined, and she shifted a bit, but there was really no room to move. Then Kat reached across her husband and found Wick's hand and squeezed it, and Wick relaxed a bit and squeezed back.

It's almost over. Almost.

The crate was unloaded, transferred to another ground vehicle and eventually unloaded and dropped rather rudely, and seven hours after sealing the box in Charybdis Wick cautiously activated the tiny fiberoptic in the circulation fan. They were in the loading dock in what appeared to be an abandoned warehouse, and they appeared to be quite alone. It was dark, though, and she watched for ten minutes before she was satisfied enough to pull the release seals and push the door open.

A few moments later she was satisfied that the package had been delivered per her instructions, and motioned to Katera to stay put. She reached the service entrance and let herself in. Thirty seconds after that the dock door was rolling up into the ceiling, and a small computer-piloted private sedan emerged. Together she and Kat loaded Nathan and all the supplies carefully into the back, and then Wick activated the pilot and programmed in the somewhat crooked path back to Louisiana. When they were three minutes away from the warehouse, she blew the small charges on the crate, and began to relax in earnest.

They managed to move Mode, and got themselves into the sedan Wick had waiting for them. It wasn't until they were underway that Kat sighed and began to really breathe again, and Wick turned to her with a grin. "I think we might have gotten away with this, Katera."

Kat smiled faintly. We did it.

She glanced down at Mode. She'd swaddled him in a blanket and refused to let him go, his head craddled in her lap and her hands unwilling to move from him. "Is that normal?" Kat looked up at Wick's question. "Should he still be asleep? Where's that disk James brought?"

That set Kat fussing about how to make Nathan more comfortable in the roomy back seat and left Wick plenty of time to review the information James had brought them. She ignored the psychological speculations and focused on the medical information. Nathan had been kept on those "twitchers" for a very long time - much longer than normal, apparently - and though James had gotten the administration to allow him some medications so permanent damage could be avoided, it would be a while before recovery could be expected. If he recovered.

"From the information here," she said at last, "it looks like his nerves are just worn out. He should be awake around the time we get home, and we need to get some food and water into him." She shut the desk down and shoved it back under the seat and looked out the front and watched the scenery rush past. "Just keep him warm. It's only a couple of hours from here."

Kat nodded and went back to stroking Nathan's hair, and Wick watched the trees go by and thought of Jordan.

Just a little longer...

Time was far more patient than he was, moving at the same, unchangeable pace, and he stared long and hard at the digital display, trying to make the numbers pass faster. As with most things when watched, it only seemed to move slower, and he sighed again.

"Someone's ancy." Jor grinned ruefully and managed to stop his clock watching long enough to glance up at his partner. "Just a little," he said with mock calm, and Willy laughed. "Bullshit. You been like this the past two weeks, Windhaven. You watch the time, it ain't gonna go anywhere."

He sighed again, overly dramatic now. "Tell me about it."

That got him another laugh. "Why don't you check out early? Things 'round here, they ain't so busy. Bet the station will let you clock out now, 'stead of having to wait around." Willy immediately had Jor's full attention and knew it, and he grinned at the younger man. "Get outta here, boy. Go see the missus."

And Jor was out the door.

It had been nearly six months since he'd last seen Wick, and it was Elisabeta all over again. On second thought, it was worse; there was no Lei to talk to, no bar to carouse at, no station to overrun, only the fortress Charybdis in the middle of fucking nowhere. The only consolation he had was to write her long, involved emails about his days and nights and how much he missed her, and that he loved her, and it was only two more months, spark, but it just wasn't the same as seeing her.

Twice he'd been given weekend passes, but this was the first full week pass they'd allotted him, and he was frantic for it to begin. Wick had managed to secure a vacation from her own work, and she was meeting him in the nearest city. His shift wasn't supposed to end for another hour, and her plane wouldn't land for three, but Jor had never been the patient type, and he was out the gate as soon as they released him.

It took him nearly two hours to make it to the airport, and once he was there he could hardly wait the remaining time. He found a pub and had a beer, and then a sandwich, and then lost ten dollars playing Keno, and all that only took fifteen minutes. Then he set about wandering the corridors, poking about gift shops and reading any magazine he could find, most of which were about nicely-dressed people he'd never heard of before, and that passed another fifteen minutes.

There was still a half hour left when he was cornered by, of all things, a flower vendor, and he nervously answered the man's questions and then just as nervously agreed that, yes, his wife would most certainly like flowers when she arrived. Not quite certain what he'd gotten himself into, he listened attentively as the vendor pointed out every single kind of flower he had, nodded when he thought the conversation required acknowledgment, and then managed to escape twenty minutes later without forty dollars but with a large bouquet of white roses.

He'd been so caught up in the flower sorting and looking and buying that he'd missed the flight arrival announcement entirely, and when he got to the gate there were already people leaving. Suddenly frantic, he began to weave in and out of the crowds, trying to find Wick and trying not to squish her flowers, and he was beginning to think she hadn't come at all when he heard a voice behind him.

"A little lost, match?"

Before she could say anything else he'd turned around and picked her up with his arms around her waist; he tried to think of something to say to express how happy he was that she was here, but settled instead for kissing her. It was a long kiss, and by the time they separated he was breathless and smiling the biggest, widest smile he'd had in a long time, and she grinned back.