Necessary Evils

by Alicia McKenzie

Domino picked up the oversized jacket she'd bought a couple of days before and slid it on. Not bad, she thought, studying herself blearily in the mirror. Not bad at all. It hid the shoulder holster completely, and that was really all she cared about.

She'd miss her old leather jacket, but fixing the newest set of bullet holes would have been a losing proposition. So, time for a new one. Time for a new Kevlar vest, too, but the less said about that the better. Her mouth twisted in an ironic smirk that quickly turned into a wince as sunlight chose the moment to flood into the hotel room.

Muttering a curse, Domino retrieved her sunglasses from the bedside table. She was feeling just a tad delicate this morning. Too bad Junior's 'miracle' hadn't given her back the alcohol tolerance she'd had the last time she'd been this young. Fifteen years, she thought, not for the first time, as she looked back at the mirror and sized up her unlined face. All of the various aches and pains she'd grown accustomed to over the years were gone as well. Maybe twenty.

Definitely creepy when you thought about it, but she supposed she'd always led one of those weird shit lives. She could hardly complain, especially now that she was rid of the damned thing and could go on with a life that promised to be a couple of decades longer--so long as she kept her wits about her and didn't make any stupid mistakes like she had last week.

Grabbing her keycard, she strode through the adjoining door into the next room. She hadn't expected it to be a beehive of activity - the boys had indulged just as much as she had the night before - but it was almost dead-silent, save for the sound of rapid typing.

"If anyone so much as mentions breakfast in my direction, I'm going to gut them," she pronounced with as sweet a smile as she could muster, closing the door to her room.

Rick Tyson looked up from his laptop, his blue eyes wide as dinnerplates behind the cat's-eye glasses he wore whenever he was in techno-wizard mode. She was almost positive it was an affectation, as he certainly didn't suffer from nearsightedness when he was looking through the sights of a rifle. He wasn't bad with a pistol, either.

"Um--morning, Dom," he said, and then turned his attention back to whatever was on his screen. His fingers flew so fast across the keyboard that they seemed to blur.

"I don't know how you can do that if your head feels anything like mine," Adam de Vries muttered from where he was sitting on one of the two beds in the room, leaning back against the headboard with his eyes squeezed tightly shut. He and Rick were polar opposites in appearance; where Rick was short, sturdy and dark-haired, Adam was tall, blond and tanned, and looked like he'd just stepped off the beach in Southern California. He even had the accent, although it came and went. "Besides, listening to you type is painful enough."

Rick gave him an innocent look. Domino smirked, reflecting again that he was far too good at the innocent act. He was the youngest member of the team - Adam had only about eight months on him - and too damned cute for his own good. The goatee he was trying to cultivate to make himself look older was only serving to make him look like a kid pretending to be grown-up.

"De Vries, I had two beers, remember? Or maybe you don't--you were too busy drinking the bar's whole supply of Scotch." He gave a nasty little chuckle. "MY head's fine."

"Bastard," Adam muttered. "The least you could do is not gloat."

Rick grinned, and Domino grumbled to herself at the sudden urge she had to go over and pat him on the head. "Boys, boys," she said dryly, instead. "Mama Bear is feeling a little fragile at the moment--can you pick up the argument later? Where are the others?"

"Barclay decided he wanted breakfast, so he went out," Adam muttered, rubbing at his temples and managing a pained smile in her direction. His eyes looked extremely bloodshot. She sympathized. "Miguel's making a phone call, and Mack went out an hour ago with that happy, 'I'm going to go buy explosives now' look on his face."

Domino snorted and collapsed in the nearest chair. "Mack and his toys," she muttered. Demolitions tended to be a side specialty for most mercs, but Mack - Kevin MacGowan, only he grimaced and shifted from foot to foot like a little kid who had to go to the bathroom if you called him Kevin - seemed to have made a near-religion out of it. It was alarming, but sort of cute, and he was good enough at it that she could forgive the way he tended to coo at his plastique. "I swear that's overcompensation--"

"Ouch," Adam snickered.

"Oh, be quiet. If I didn't make jokes at his expense, he'd think I didn't love him." Domino gave Rick and Adam her best, most sincere winning smile. "Which one of you wants to be a nice boy and get me a cup of coffee?"

Rick looked up from his computer for just long enough to give Adam an expectant look, and Adam muttered a curse, sliding off the bed and staggering over to the coffeemaker. He'd just poured a cup and managed to get it over to her without spilling it when the door opened and Barclay Jones stepped in, bearing breakfast.

"There's the best little Italian bakery down the street," he said with a hesitant smile. "I bought a bunch of stuff--" Adam paled and shook his head vehemently. Barclay looked bemused, as usual. Domino had been a little wary of him at first, until she'd seen him in action and noted the quiet competence that he applied to the task at hand. He had definite obsessive-compulsive tendencies and bore a striking resemblance to a startled sheepdog, but it hadn't taken her long to understand why he was on the team. He was just that good, despite his personality quirks.

"What sort of stuff?" Rick asked, never looking up from his keyboard.

"Oh," Barclay said vaguely. "Muffins. Bread. Even some of those stuffed doughnut things--what do they call them? The ones with custard?"

Adam turned visibly green, and staggered towards the bathroom, shooting an evil look at Rick as he went by. Rick merely chuckled, and never stopped typing.

Barclay looked confused, then took on that 'sheepdog pondering a complicated concept' expression. "That wasn't very nice," he finally said to Rick, his voice reproachful.

"Hey, he called me a geek last night," Rick protested manfully. "I don't have to take that from someone I can outshoot--"

"I heard that, Tyson!" came a muffled shout from the bathroom, followed by the very distinct sound of retching.

Domino winced as her stomach churned reflexively, as if in sympathy. Barclay smiled a little absently and started in her direction with the bag. She gave him a warning look. "Not one more step." Ordinarily, she would have been sufficiently appreciative, but right now the 'fresh-baked' smell was just about enough to drive her into the bathroom to join Adam.

He blinked. "Okay," he said rather meekly. "Rick, you want a muffin or something?"

"Sure," Rick said, and directed an evil smile at the bathroom door. "Got any with chunks in it, Barclay?" he went on, raising his voice to make sure that Adam could hear him.

"Rick," Domino said through gritted teeth, trying to smile. The mental image was just a little--much. "Would you mind, dear?"

The use of the affectionate term, delivered in such a murderous tone, had precisely the desired effect. Rick closed his mouth with a snap, looking apologetic. "Sorry," he muttered wistfully.

"Apology accepted," she grumbled, and sipped at her coffee. It was decent enough. Strong, without being tar-like. "What're you doing, anyway? Picking up the surveillance feed from last night?"

Rick nodded, frowning a little. "I just set up my decryption protocol," he said. "Having a little trouble stripping the feed off the bugs--I don't know why."

The bathroom door opened. "Oh, so the geek can't get his bugs to behave?" Adam said snippily, looking a little less green but still decidedly unimpressed as he braced himself against the doorframe. "Better get out the Raid. We can't have them running amuck."

Rick raised one hand off the keyboard for long enough to give him the finger, and then went back to typing. "I'm getting something, but it's been corrupted," he said, his brow creasing fretfully. Domino almost told him not to worry so much, but it would have been a waste of breath. Rick tended to be a little tightly wound when his toys weren't behaving. "Almost like the bugs picked up an EM charge or something, don't ask me how."

The door opened again, and Domino looked up, raising an eyebrow. "Morning, boss," she said teasingly as Miguel Garcia, the leader of this team to which she'd grown rather appallingly attached in a mere six months, walked in with a slightly baffled look on his handsome face. "Where have you been?"

Garcia was thirty-five years old, the closest of any of them to her own actual age. Putting aside the fact that he looked like a taller, slightly more rugged version of Antonio Banderas, he was, to be perfectly honest, someone from whom she didn't mind taking orders. His skills were at a level that was within a hair's-breadth of her own at the most, and she'd been in enough tight situations with him over the last half-year that she trusted his judgement. He was a natural tactician, with the right instincts for leadership, and she found herself quite favorably inclined to the idea of working with him for the foreseeable future.

The fact that there'd been some cosmic screwup and he'd gotten a double helping of Latino charm didn't hurt her opinion of him, either. And he certainly was easy on the eyes--well, there's the understatement of the century, Domino thought, and then forced herself to focus. He did look concerned. She wondered what was up.

"I've been talking to our employers," Miguel muttered, his dark eyes troubled as he went over to get himself a cup of coffee. "I think they're getting impatient."

Adam straightened, looking alarmed, an expression echoed almost instantly by Rick as he glanced up from his work. Barclay merely looked bemused.

Domino sighed, shaking her head very slightly at all of them. "We haven't precisely finished our job in the agreed-upon time," she reminded the younger men, trying to sound reassuring. It was hard; Miguel looked a bit rattled, although he was hiding it well, and that suggested the situation was a little more serious than that. "It'd be strange if they were happy with that."

Their latest mission had seemed relatively simple enough. Their employers wanted them to steal a particular set of computer programs - very sophisticated spyware, apparently, from how Rick had babbled on excitedly about it - from what was euphemistically termed a 'non-governmental organization'. It hadn't seemed all that complicated a job, especially considering the fact that their employers - whom Dom was almost sure answered to the US government - had been kind enough to supply them a list with some of this organization's installations in the continental United States.

Perfectly straightforward. Except that these installations had all been abandoned or destroyed by the time they got to them. She'd actually begun to wonder if they weren't being led around by the nose for some bizarre reason, until they'd found the one here outside Atlanta still intact, and apparently very much in operation. It was a secured compound, a harder target than some of the ones they'd seen would have been, so they'd gone out three nights ago to bug the surrounding area, hoping to get information on what kind of defenses they'd be facing.

"That's not quite it," Miguel said, looking puzzled. And definitely worried, Domino noticed, sitting up straight and eying him intently. He was good at hiding his reactions - had to be, in his position - but the mask was cracking a little around the edges. Miguel took a sip of coffee and then turned around, leaning back against the edge of the table and grimacing at them all. "I can't put my finger on it, but my contact sounds--suspicious."

"About us?" Domino asked sharply.

Miguel nodded. "I told him about most of the installations being abandoned or wrecked, and he just about accused me of knowing more than I was saying." He shook his head. "I've got no clue what's going on, people, but I don't like the sounds of it."

Barclay looked thoughtful. "It's not much to go on."

"No," Domino put in, a little more harshly than she'd intended, "but this is one of those instances where you should trust your instincts." They all looked at her - all except Rick, who was still struggling with the surveillance feed - and Domino's mouth twisted ironically. She might not be calling the shots, here, but her reputation seemed to give her a level of moral authority she hadn't expected. "Look at this logically," she went on. "Unless someone's playing a double game, they gave us the location of these installations expecting us to be able to find these programs at one of them. The fact that they've all been taken out or left abandoned seems to suggest there's another player in the game."

Adam groaned. "Just what we need," he said with a sigh. "Maybe we should just hit the one we've got under surveillance right now and take our chances--" Miguel gave him a mildly reproving look, and Adam shut his mouth. "Okay, maybe not," he said, more meekly.

"We do have to do something, though," Miguel admitted with a sigh, folding his arms across his chest. "Finish this job as quickly and safely as we can--stringing these people along would NOT be a good idea."

Domino had to agree, given her own suspicions as to their employers' identities. That was the problem with taking on assignments legitimate government agencies wouldn't touch; you tended to be expendable if you fucked up. "Caution being the operative word here, of course," she said with a faint smile.

Miguel's expression turned ironic. "Of course."

***

Domino wondered if pinching herself would help; maybe she'd wake up. She doubted it somehow, though. Moments like these tended to be all too real; life had a nasty sense of humor.

Life. She'd thought she was starting a new life, or at least going back to an old, whatever you wanted to call her return to the vocation of her youth. Six months, and she'd almost let herself begin to believe it. Miguel and his people were better teammates than she'd had any right to expect--maybe better friends, if she let down her guard enough to admit it--

But she'd never imagined having to take point on an operation like this. Yeah, Mr. Disney, it's a fucking small world all right, she thought bleakly, watching through her binoculars as a familiar, silver-haired figure pulled his gear out of the back of his jeep and entered the farmhouse through the side door.

"That him?" Garcia asked from the driver's seat of the van.

"No, Miguel, it's the Tooth Fairy," Domino muttered, lowering the binoculars.

She heard him sigh. "Come on, Dom. It was a fair question."

"I know. Sorry." She made sure her expression was suitably composed before she turned to face him. "It's him," she said unnecessarily.

"Okay, I promise another bad word about intelligence-gathering again," Mack said from the back seat, his flippancy sounding forced. "It's not such a waste of time after all. I suppose you do have to find the target before you can blow it up, at least."

The joke fell flat. Domino felt her mouth twist in a bitter smile as she looked back over her shoulder at the burly redhead fiddling with his gear. She'd opened her mouth to retort when the urge to do so abruptly left her. It didn't matter. They were here, and they had a situation to handle. One way or the other--

It had been a week since that morning, seven full days since Rick had downloaded that last night's worth of surveillance data and found out that the target compound no longer existed. Sometime during the night - 0125 hours according to the surveillance feed - it had been blown to smoking cinders.

The surveillance feed had shown them that in wonderful, graphic detail once Rick had cleaned it up a little. It had even given them the identity of the one-man wrecking crew they were now assuming had taken out the other installations that had been destroyed.

And somehow, deep down, Domino hadn't been surprised to find out it was Nathan. Maybe it was some residual bit of their psi-link, but seeing him on the screen of Rick's laptop, calmly walking out of the compound he'd just blown to kingdom come, had been like feeling the last piece fall into the puzzle in her mind.

Miguel was kicking himself for sharing the surveillance data with their employers. It turned out that they'd already known about Nathan's involvement, and that was the reason for the suspicion Miguel had detected in his conversation with their contact that morning. They'd known, and thought that she and Miguel and the others were WORKING with Nathan, that they'd taken the money and then proceeded to pull a double-cross--

"I hate working to a deadline," she murmured, trying to keep it light. Humor as a coping mechanism. Too bad it wasn't a hundred percent effective.

"I know," Garcia said quietly.

"I'm still not happy about this," she went on, as calmly as she could. His eyes were almost black in the near-darkness, but she could see the concern there--for her, for all of them.

"And I am?" he asked. "That was a fucking ultimatum our contact gave us, Dom, and we all know what's on the other side of failing to deliver."

Domino swallowed and looked away. The threat their employers had made had been perfectly simple, and more than effective. Their contact had promised to spread the word that they'd taken the money and broken their contract, that they'd actually acted against the interests of the people footing the bill--that they couldn't be trusted.

The fact that he'd also promised to have them hunted down and killed - something Miguel had shared only with her - wasn't good news either.

"I know," she said, taking a deep breath. She could make this work, make it as easy as possible on everyone. The alternative--just wasn't acceptable. She wasn't even going to think about it.

"I still think this is too much of a risk," Garcia said, a barely perceptible edge of worry to his words. "You going in there alone--"

"He's not going to hurt me, Miguel," Domino said. About that, at least, she was fairly confident.

"I've got some lovely blocks of semtex, deedle-de-dee, here they are all nice and neatly stacked--big ones, small ones, some as big as your head!--give them a cap or a detonator cord, that's what the bomber said!" Mack sang softly in the back seat.

Domino blinked, and shook her head quizzically as Miguel looked over his shoulder at Mack and then bacl at her with a helpless expression. "Quit trying to lighten the mood, Mack," she muttered, and then met Miguel's eyes squarely. "You don't need to worry about me."

"I can't help it. But I have to admit I'm worried about the rest of us, too. If you go in there to talk to him and he decides not to listen to reason, it's going to make things a lot harder all around," Miguel pointed out, far too reasonably. The corner of his mouth quirked upwards in a faint, sad smile. "If this winds up getting anyone killed--"

"It won't." Okay, so she wasn't nearly as sure about that, but she'd be damned if she advocated a preemptive strike. Nathan deserved a chance to--to understand the situation they were in, and do the right thing. Miguel raised an eyebrow at her, and she mimicked the expression. "All right, I know, but damn it, we talked about this, Miguel! What do you think will happen if you go in there with guns blazing? At least this way we've got a chance to resolve this without anyone getting hurt--"

"I'm not trying to change the plan."

"Good," Domino said, cutting him off before he could continue. She turned her attention to the tiny microphone hidden in the lapel of her coat. "You reading me, Rick?"

"Loud and clear," Rick's voice crackled, through the tiny earpiece she wore. He and the rest of the team were crowded into the second van, standing by. "You got your bracelet on?"

The 'bracelets' they all wore were personal psychic white-noise generators. Rick had whipped them up in about three hours flat, two days ago. Forge would be jealous , Domino thought emptily, raising her hand and studying the slim strip of metal. "I've got my bracelet on," she said with a sigh. "So, if I need you, I shout--"

"No, we listen, and go in the moment he looks like he's balking," Miguel interjected. "Anything else is an unacceptable risk." Domino looked up at him, biting her lip to keep back an irritated retort, but his eyes bored into her, unwavering. It dawned on her that it would be futile to try and argue. Especially since he had a point. "Stakes are too high, Dom, I'm sorry."

"You're preaching to the choir, Garcia," she said waspishly. Damn. *What a fucking mess.*

His expression softened for a moment. "Dom, none of us blame you for this--"

"Well, good! Because I didn't do a damned thing to get us into this!" No one had. Not her, not Miguel--not even Nathan. Coincidence had intersected with bad timing, and with a sprinkle of personal baggage thrown in for good measure, they found themselves on the verge of disaster.

These things happened. These things--

"I know," Miguel said, drawing her out of her bleak reverie. "It's no one's fault. But we have to get ourselves out of it, and that's all there is to it."

"I know," Domino said, annoyed by his persistence. What, did he think she was a rookie, needing instructions drilled into her head so she'd remember what she was supposed to be doing?

"Good. Just so we're clear."

"Crystal. So long as we're also clear on the fact that killing him is NOT in the plan," Domino snapped.

Miguel's expression turned bleak. "Dom, if you think I can guarantee that--"

"I'm not asking you to. I know there aren't any guarantees, Miguel, but I'm telling you that there are some lines I won't cross. Or let the rest of you cross." She checked her weapon, then reholstered it carefully. "I can deal with doing what we have to do to get the information." The damnable thing was that she could, too. Part of her could hardly believe that she was prepared to go down there and interrogate Nathan--but you did what you had to do. She had other loyalties to consider now. "He's a big boy, he knows how the game's played. But if I hear anyone discussing putting a bullet in his head, I'm going to get a little squirrely." She shot Miguel a defiant look. "Just warning you in advance."

"Fair enough," Miguel allowed. Domino reached out to open the door, and he laid a hand on her arm. "Good luck," he murmured, and there was something very close to compassion in his voice.

It made her want to laugh. Or scream--she wasn't sure which. She stared at him for a moment, fighting back both reactions, and then managed a tight, utterly humorless smile. "I can almost believe you mean that, Miguel," she said hoarsely.

***

Taking a deep breath, Domino knocked on the door, and then waited.

And waited.

Eventually, she tried knocking again, but there was still no answer. No sound at all from the other side of the door, nothing to give away the fact that he was in there.

"Come on, Nate," she called out, her voice sounding flat even to her own ears. "Knock it off. I know you saw me walking up the driveway." And it had been a long, long driveway, giving her plenty of time to think about the situation. Too much time. Contemplation was not your friend in situations like this. "Quit pretending you're not at home."

Abruptly, the door swung open. There was no one on the other side, but it was still an invitation of sorts, she supposed. Taking another deep breath, Domino stuffed her slightly unsteady hands into her pockets and stepped through into the farmhouse.

It was rather more domestic-looking than she'd expected. Rustic-looking, earth tones--a little more attractive than Nate's usual hide-outs. Save for a short hallway leading away from one side of the kitchen, the entire first floor was open and airy, the kitchen and living room and dining room all more or less a single large space.

"Nice place," she quipped.

Nathan stood on the other side of the living room, just to the left of the bay window at the front of the house. "What do you want, Dom?" he said coldly, staring out into the night and not looking at her.

Okay, so small talk is out. She studied him for a moment, trying to buy herself a little time to think. "You look good, Nate," she said finally. He did, too; it looked like his TO cocoon had subtracted about as many years from his physical age as Junior had from hers. At another time, she might have made a joke about it, but this wasn't precisely the best moment for levity.

"Pardon me if I don't believe you tracked me all the way to Kentucky to tell me that," he grated, and then finally looked around at her. "Why are you here?" The sight of his nearly-unlined face was a jolt, but the look in his eyes was all too familiar.

She'd just never expected to see that icy anger directed at her.

"To talk to you," Domino answered, as levelly as she could. Calm, she had to stay perfectly calm. The last thing they needed was her anxiety reinforcing his.

"Oh, sure." His eye blazed in the dimness of the room, that fierce golden light pulsing in a pattern that seemed almost hostile. "Who are your friends?"

Domino stiffened. So much for the bracelets, she thought resignedly. Or maybe he'd seen the vans. This was the person who'd taught her most of what she knew about countersurveillance, after all. "My friends?" she said anyway, playing it out.

"The ones in the vans. Come on, Dom, you didn't really think I wouldn't notice, did you?" He shook his head, as if trying to clear it. "Little patches of distortion on the astral plane," he muttered, his eyes unfocusing for a minute. "It's like this buzzing in my ears--nails on a chalkboard, almost."

Oh, just fucking SWELL. Not only didn't the damned bracelets work, they were setting his teeth on edge. Just what she needed. "Nate--" She stopped, swallowed, and tried to make her voice more brisk as she went on. "They're my new--colleagues. Good people. You'd like them. Look, why don't we--"

"Sit down? Have a little chat about this?" He finally turned completely towards her, and Domino stiffened at the sight of the gun in his hand. It wasn't pointed at her, but the fact that he had it out wasn't particularly reassuring. Not a good start. "I think I'd like to move ahead to the explanations, if you don't mind," he went on, an edge of venom creeping into his voice. "You can skip the fucking pleasantries."

"Don't swear at me, Summers," she said automatically. If she didn't keep the conversation going, Miguel and the others would be in here like a shot. "Where's your psimitar?" she asked sharply. The last couple of times she'd seen him, he'd been using it on its own, but she didn't see it anywhere.

Nathan's eyes narrowed dangerously. "Size up the situation," he spat. "Determine what resources your opponent has available. I know this game, too, Dom."

"Damn it, Nate, would you calm down!" He was rattled, she could tell. This wasn't going well. "This doesn't have to be a big deal. I just need some information from you--that's not too much to ask, is it?"

"Depends on the information," Nathan flared, moving away from the window, obviously taking care to keep out of line of sight.

Domino tried not to grind her teeth. "You took out a secured compound outside Atlanta last week," she said, opting for bluntness. His eyes widened slightly in surprise, but he got control of his expression again almost as quickly and proceeded to glare at her. "Took it out, turned it into a smoking hole in the ground--you know, the usual sort of thing you tend to do when you take a dislike to a place. We've got surveillance tapes placing you there."

"So?"

"So, I've spent most of the last week backtracking your movements for the last few months." It had taken a hell of a lot of research, and she'd had to call in more favors than she liked to think about, but she'd done it. "If I'm right, you've done the same thing in at least six other places across the country." She folded her arms across her chest and watched him. "Am I right?"

His eyes shifted away from hers, back to the window. "Maybe," he said restlessly. "What's your point? Since when do you care what I do with my time, Dom?"

"Since our--relationship made my team's current employer think we were working with you to double-cross them," Domino snapped back, itching to smack him for making this personal. His eyes widened again, just a little, but that was the only reaction he let slip. "We need one of those installations intact, Nathan. You've taken out all the ones we know about--"

"Good," he interrupted her, his tone almost defiant.

She could have screamed. "Damn it, would you stop blustering and listen to me?" she snarled. "I don't know what your interest is in all this, but I'm not asking you to stop this little private war of yours. I just want the location of one of these installations, and a chance to get in there and get the data we need before you take the place out! Is that too much to ask?"

Nathan shook his head slowly. "You have absolutely no clue what you've walked into, do you?" The contempt in his tone nearly floored her. He'd never talked this way to her before, not even during the times they'd been at each other's throats.

"We have to finish this mission," she tried again, willing him to listen to her, to understand. Why did he always have to make things so hard? "If we don't, we're blacklisted at the best--dead men walking at worst." Nathan was still shaking his head. She tried very hard to stop grinding her teeth. "Damn it, Nate! These are good people. They don't deserve to have their lives ruined just because your fucking mission happened to get in the way!"

"My mission?" For a minute she saw his control start to fracture before he caught himself and went on, his voice cold again. "My mission's over, Dom. You know that. This is something completely different--"

"So tell me what's going on!" If he'd just give her something, something she could work with--she wasn't asking for much, why couldn't he just--

"Not a chance." The words were flat, irrevocable. His eyes were as cold as she'd ever seen them, every bit of the Nathan she knew shut away behind adamantine walls. "What you're after doesn't belong in this century. It sure as hell doesn't belong in the hands of whoever can buy a good black-ops team to get it for them. Who's footing the bill, the US government?"

The bracelet was no good, because she could feel him inside her head, seething along the last thread of the psi-link and seeing everything, knowing exactly why she was here. She didn't try and push him out. Maybe if he saw, he'd understand--

"Dom, we're coming in," Miguel's voice whispered through her earpiece, and that frozen feeling vanished, blasted away by rage.

FUCK! Fuck every stubborn man on this whole fucking planet--

"You bastard," she spat, livid, taking a step towards Nathan. "I ask you to cut me a little slack, and you do everything but laugh in my face!"

The gun was suddenly leveled at her. She stopped, something clenching spasmodically in her chest for an instant. Then the sensation of tightness eased, replaced by a strange, fatalistic calm, and she looked up at Nathan, baring her teeth at him in a smile that wasn't a smile.

"Shoot me, then." The gun wavered, just a little, and she took a step closer. "What's the matter?" she asked, her not-smile growing. "If I'm getting in your way, you shouldn't be hesitating. Or do I need to turn around so you can shoot me in the back, like you did Hammer?"

The gun wavered again, an almost stricken look entering Nathan's eyes, and Domino seized the opportunity. She spun and kicked the gun out of his hand. It flew away in an arc and clattered to the floor behind a chair. Before he could bring it back to his hand telekinetically, Domino lunged at him, pressing the attack. She slammed a fist in the flesh-and-blood side of his jaw and followed it up with a solid kick to the midsection.

Nathan staggered backwards, and the windows exploded inwards with a blinding flash. Domino dove for cover, and heard Nathan curse aloud. "Mack, damn it!" she swore into the mic. "Easy on the fucking explosives!"

Blinking rapidly to clear her vision, she popped back up from behind the table where she'd taken cover and saw Nathan turning to face the window, swaying as he moved. The link was vibrating with tension, almost fear. The flash-bang--it would have been worse for him, his eyes were so much more sensitive than hers--

Opportunity, the logical part of her brain said, and she hauled herself to her feet and threw herself at him, managing to tackle him to the floor and land a couple of solid punches.

"Get OFF me!" Nathan shoved her away and staggered back to his feet just as Domino's teammates came in through the shattered window.

Even half-blinded and disoriented, Nathan reacted incredibly fast. Mack was the first through the door, and Nathan disarmed him in two lightning-swift moves that left him on the ground, groaning. Adam ducked under Nathan's next attack and managed to land a few blows of his own, but Nathan shook them off as if they were nothing and lashed out with his telekinesis, sending Adam flying into the nearest wall, and not gently.

Distraction, she thought, seeing Rick and Miguel coming in through the door she'd used. Rick had a taser in his hand, and was obviously sizing up the situation, trying to get a clear shot. Something snapped inside her. There'd be no going back if it came to that--

"Nathan!" Domino snarled, pulling herself back to her feet and lunging at him again, surprised when all he did was block her attack. "It doesn't have to be this way, damn it!"

His eye flashed brighter, and Domino grunted in shock as she was flung aside, not nearly as forcefully as Adam had been, but hard enough to knock the breath from her lungs as she landed. Rick aimed and fired. The taser's darts made contact, but Nathan only staggered, clawing feebly at the wires as he went to his knees.

Damn it, she'd told them that she wasn't sure a taser blast could take him down--

An armchair went flying across the room and knocked Rick off his feet. Miguel dove for the taser, but Nathan had already yanked the darts out of his skin and flung them away. He was still struggling to get up when Adam tackled him from behind and Barclay, who she hadn't even seen come through the window, stepped forward and slammed the butt of his gun into the back of Nathan's head.

"Barclay, EASY!" Domino snarled hoarsely as Nathan crumpled like a puppet whose strings had been cut. Her heart lurched in her chest. "You idiot!" she hissed at Barclay as she got up and staggered forward. He had the grace to look abashed. "How the hell is he supposed to tell us anything if you fracture his fucking skull?"

She knelt down beside Nathan,checking his pulse. "Good thing he's got such a hard head," Domino muttered, trying to ignore the fact that her hands were shaking. *Calm down, girl--you've done worse to him sparring.* But this wasn't sparring, wasn't an accident--

"Shit," Miguel muttered, crouching next to her. "Barclay, a little more careful next time, okay?" He gave Domino a tight-lipped smile. "Then again, considering the flying furniture, maybe it wasn't such a bad idea."

Domino could have decked him. "I warned you," she said instead, her voice shaking. She wished her heart would slow down to a more reasonable rate. "You take on an alpha-level telekinetic and flying furniture tends to happen. You're lucky he didn't rip the house apart around us. Help me get him up."

"Shit, he's heavy," Adam muttered, helping them get Nathan on his feet. He sagged limply between them, out like a light, and Domino ducked her head, deliberately not meeting Miguel's eyes as her own blurred with something she wouldn't let be tears.

They got him into a chair, and Domino looked over at Rick in time to see him steady himself on the wall and start over in their direction, limping noticeably. He looked okay, mostly. She was glad. "Rick," she said, her voice breaking despite her best efforts. "You were holding onto something for me."

He'd already had it in his hands, and handed it over without a word. Domino held it for a moment, remembering how Rick had hacked into SHIELD's databases to find out how they'd kept Nathan prisoner without inhibiting his powers. He and the others had gone to such lengths, taken so many chances to try and make this work--

And yet here they were. Exactly where she hadn't wanted to be.

Domino stepped forward and fastened the psionic dampening collar around Nathan's neck.

***

The coffee was too strong. She drank it anyway. It was hideously inappropriate to be standing here in Nathan's kitchen, drinking his coffee while he was slumped unconscious in a chair five feet away, wearing restraints. But she had to do something while she waited for him to wake up.

Domino's hands tightened spasmodically around the mug and she leaned heavily against the counter, staring vacantly out the small kitchen window. So quiet out there. Almost peaceful. She heard movement behind her, and managed not to jump as Miguel laid a hand on her shoulder.

"Dom?" he asked, very gently. "You okay?"

"Fine," she rasped, half-turning to meet his questioning gaze. His eyes were clear and sad as they met hers. "Everyone else okay?"

"Mack's out in the van checking the gear and nursing his hurt pride," Miguel said, the corner of his mouth quirking upwards for a moment, before his expression turned serious again. "Everyone else is here."

Domino swallowed and turned around. "So they are," she said hoarsely. She hadn't really been paying attention. *Off in my own little world--* Barclay was hovering near the door, looking unsure of himself. Rick was sitting at the kitchen table across from Nathan, tapping busily away on his laptop and seemingly unaware of the two black eyes he was developing, and Adam was leaning over his shoulder, studying the screen. He in particular looked a little worse for wear, but they were all largely intact. Amazingly so.

How the hell did we do that?

She didn't realize she'd said it aloud until Miguel gave a faint, rueful laugh beside her. "Sheer dumb luck?"

Domino flinched violently, but he wasn't looking her direction and didn't notice. How the hell did we do that? We. Domino's eyes burned, and she blinked rapidly, looking everywhere but at Nathan. Even with all that had happened between them over the years, she'd never done this before, never chosen to put herself on the opposite side like this.

"Sheer dumb luck," she said, the words sounding ghastly as they came out, like she was using someone else's voice. Luck had nothing to do with it; not hers, not anyone else's. She'd set him up, and that was all there was to it.

Rick looked up from his laptop. A myriad of different emotions fought each other on his face before his expression finally settled into a pained sort of understanding. "He might understand," he said tentatively.

Domino gave a hollow laugh. "And the sun might rise in the west tomorrow morning, Rick. What's your point?"

Rick looked honestly distressed at the bitterness in her voice, but before he could reply, Adam straightened and met her eyes, his jaw set determinedly. "We don't have a choice," he said flatly. "You gave him a chance to give you the information--"

"He wasn't going to give it to me, Adam," Domino said, her voice husky. Saying it aloud, admitting it, made her want to--to scream, or pull a few handfuls of hair out of her scalp, or maybe pick up the nearest chair and break it over her own head. That would be quite the trick--

She supposed she had known, deep down. The Nathan who'd been blowing up these installations when the bulk of their personnel was still inside wasn't the Nathan who'd led X-Force, who'd unbent enough to let the kids into his heart and made her believe, just for a while, that they could have shared something real, something lasting--

No, this was the old Nathan. The soldier fixated on his mission - whatever the hell that was, these days - the fanatic who wasn't going to be budged from the course he'd chosen, no matter who he had to go through along the way.

Or maybe she was just trying to justify herself. Yeah. That sounded much more likely--

A soft groan interrupted her downward-spiraling train of thought, and Domino swallowed as Nathan stirred in his chair, raising his head a little before letting it sink back to his chest. He muttered something in Askani that sounded unutterably foul and then took a deep, shuddering breath.

She knew the moment he realized he was wearing a collar. His whole body went rigid, and his head shot upwards, moving back and forth as he looked around with unfocused eyes. Beads of sweat stood out on his forehead as he struggled vainly against the restraints, and Domino stepped forward, steeling herself as his eyes followed her movement, trying to focus on her. There was fear there--she could see it, barely veiled beneath the confusion.

"It's not an inhibitor collar," she said, very softly. "Give me some credit."

The muscles along his jaw clenched, but he said nothing. Some of that fear faded, though, which was about as much as she could hope for at the moment. Too bad it was replaced so quickly by anger. "I can't--believe you did this," he said finally, with some difficulty, as if his jaw wasn't working quite properly.

Domino closed her eyes. Just for a moment. "You didn't leave me much choice," she said as she looked back at him.

A choked laugh escaped him. "There's always a choice, Dom." Only then did he look around at the others, his gaze lingering longest on Miguel. "You," he said a little hazily. "I know you, don't I?"

Miguel nodded. "We met once," he said, very quietly. "It was a long time ago."

Domino's head whipped around, but Miguel merely gave her a steady look, and didn't offer to elaborate. "I didn't know that," she murmured distractedly.

Nathan gave another one of those not-laughs. "Bugging you these days, is it? All the things you don't know, I mean--isn't that what this is all about?" He leaned back in the chair with a wince, obviously trying to ease the pull on his shoulders. "Oath--who hit me with what?"

"Um, that was me," Barclay said a little hesitantly, flinching as Nathan looked over at him. "Sorry about that."

"Sorry has no meaning."

"Ignore him, Barclay," Domino said, finding the strength from somewhere to make her voice a little more brisk. "He goes into these philosophical fits at times."

"And you always hated that," Nathan gritted out, glaring at her through narrowed eyes. His head had to hurt, she thought. She could always tell when he was in pain, by that little crease between his eyebrows--

"It's pretty fucking annoying, you have to admit." The words came out cooler than she'd expected they would. She walked over and put a hand beneath Nathan's chin, tilting his head upward. Hard to gauge if he had a concussion, given that he had only one pupil visible, but it gave her something to go on. "I told you it didn't have to be this way," she murmured. Not particularly dilated. Maybe they'd gotten lucky. "But no, you always have to do things the hard way."

Nathan tried to pull away but arrested the movement halfway, with another wince. "You suppose we could skip the intermediate steps, get down to business?" he said, squeezing his eyes tightly closed, his breathing growing heavier, as if he was fighting back nausea. She wouldn't be surprised if that was the case, considering the size of the bump at the base of his skull.

"No," she said, her voice still very low. "I thought we might take some extra time with them, give you a chance to change your mind." Domino traced the side of his face gently. There were bruises rising along his jaw, and his right eye looked like it was trying to swell shut already. She or Adam must have gotten a good punch in somewhere along the line.

"What happens if I don't?" he grated, opening his eyes and glaring at her again. The fear was gone completely now, leaving pure livid anger in its place. "How far are you going to take this, Dom?"

"Hey, come on, man," Rick said, sounding troubled. "You think she wanted to do this?" He persisted, even when Nathan leveled that glare at him. "You didn't give us any other choice."

"Rick, leave it," Miguel said suddenly. "Cable, this is my fault--I showed the surveillance tape with you on it to our employers." He sighed, his eyes flickering to Domino for a moment. "That was what started all of this, so if you're going to blame someone, blame me. Not her."

"Fuck you," Nathan growled, and then looked directly at Domino. "What is, is," he almost spat. Daring her silently to react, to lose her temper.

Domino balled up the tiny, fierce spurt of rage and shoved it away into a safe corner of her mind. "Exactly," she said carefully. "And you happen to be in no position to indulge that damned stubborn streak of yours at the moment, Nathan, so take that into consideration."

"That a threat, Dom?" Nathan retorted, a strange, strained smile playing on his lips.

"No," she said. "Just a statement of fact."

"I see." Nathan looked away for a moment, his gaze drifting over the others before returning to her. She could almost see the wheels turning in his head as he weighed options, trying to see a way out of this. Then something almost like malice glowed in his eyes, and he gave her a thin smile. "So which of them are you sleeping with?"

Domino stared at him. "I think you maybe want to stop right there, Nate," she said, barely managing to get the words out past the tightness in her throat. *You bastard.* She'd steeled herself for his reaction when he came to, but she hadn't expected this, hadn't thought that anger would make him go quite that far.

"Why?" He shifted in the chair, testing the restraints again. "I think it's a fair question, isn't it?" Miguel grimaced, and that smile came back to Nathan's face, edged with something a great deal nastier this time. "Wait, no, let me guess. You've always had a thing for men in authority--"

She hit him. Not hard, but enough to wipe the smile off his face, and the force of the blow rocked him backwards briefly. He blinked, shaking his head a little, and then looked up at her, his expression suddenly wooden.

"I'm not wasting time fencing with you, Summers," she almost hissed, knowing she was trembling but unable to do much about it. Her hand was aching, but at least she hadn't hit him on the techno-organic side of his jaw. He probably would have laughed at her if she had.

Fuck, forget that. She could beat the crap out of him and he'd just laugh.

"Dom--" Miguel murmured.

"Back off, Garcia!" she snapped, and felt him stiffen where he stood behind her. "You agreed to let me handle this!"

"Oh, so you want the privilege of beating the information out of me all to yourself?" Nathan muttered, looking away.

"Hey, I wouldn't blame her if she did, man," Adam said with barely veiled hostility. "What a low fucking blow."

Nathan glared at him, and every dish in the kitten rattled, just slightly. It got the desired reaction from everyone but her and Miguel; Adam swore, Rick was up out of his chair like a shot, and Barclay stepped forward, raising his gun almost instinctively.

Miguel stepped up beside her, giving Nathan a wary look and her a questioning one, but Domino ignored him and stared down neutrally at Nathan. "Do I have to crank up the dampener a little?" she asked very quietly, noting the beads of sweat standing out on his forehead again. Surely he wouldn't risk losing control over the TO virus just to startle them.

Jaw clenched, he looked up at her and said nothing. Domino held his eyes with her own, willing him to back down and give them the information they needed. She really didn't want to do this. Her stomach was twisting itself into knots, just thinking of what she was going to have to do if he continued to balk. "Nate, tell me," she said softly, letting it sound like the plea it was. "Please--"

He stared up at her, the walls in his eyes cracking just a little, and for a moment she let herself believe he was going to tell her, that this could be over, right here and now.

Then he opened his mouth.

"No," he said, his voice rough. "Not even for you."

A bleak, tense silence fell over the kitchen. Domino swallowed and nodded jerkily. "Okay," she said, her voice coming out high and strained. "This is on your head, Nate."

His mouth twisted bitterly. "Keep telling yourself that, Dom. It'll make you feel better."

"Shut up, Nathan," she said emptily, and turned away. At the other end of the table was the case Rick had fetched from the van while Nathan had still been unconscious. Their medical kit was well-stocked by even her standards - Barclay's fussiness had its uses - but it hadn't contained what she needed.

Too few options. Physical means were out. She'd seen him laugh in the face of worse than she was willing to do, or let the others do. They didn't have a telepath handy, not that she was sure anyone other than Xavier or Jean Grey or one of Nate's own damned dopplegangers would have been able to crack his shields.

So few options. So little time. Domino found the wallet-sized, hard plastic container she'd been looking for and opened it, staring down at the two syringes it contained. She lifted one out.

"Damn you for making me do this," she murmured. His eyes burned into her as she came over and crouched beside his chair, but he didn't say a word as she injected him with the contents of the syringe.

It was a drug cocktail, the modern version of 'truth serum', mostly scopolamine with a few other more sophisticated compounds she knew only by name and effect. What she'd just given him was nearly double the recommended dose, since she had to compensate for the TO virus--

If it was too much--

"How long until this stuff kicks in?" Miguel asked softly.

"Fifteen minutes," Domino muttered weakly. "Maybe twenty."

*And then the fun starts, doesn't it?* a voice sneered at her in the back of her mind. Her conscience, maybe? She wasn't sure. It hardly mattered at this point, did it? The choices had been made, and there was no going back.

Nathan suddenly pulled against the restraints, almost desperately. "Stab your eyes," he breathed, defeat in his voice for a moment as he slumped in the chair. He wouldn't look at her.

She couldn't really blame him.

***

"Nathan?" Domino checked his pulse, glancing at her watch as she did. His heartrate was way up--a side effect of the scopolamine, but also a sign she might have given him too much. She couldn't tell just yet. The line between overdose and 'just enough' was dangerously hazy with this drug. "Nate, can you hear me?" She bent down, taking his face between her hands to check his eyes. There was only a thin circle of gray left around the pupil of his right eye, and his left eye flickered feebly, like a star winking out at dawn.

Everyone except Miguel had cleared out to give her some space. He was standing well out of the way, where Nathan couldn't see him. Perversely, she hated the fact that he was there, that anyone was going to see this. Pulling a chair out from the table and turning it around backwards, she sat down and stared at Nathan's slumped figure. She wondered if this tightness in her chest was ever going to go away. Maybe when this was over.

Then again, maybe not.

"Come on, Nate. Answer me."

Nathan blinked at her slowly. That part of her mind where the psi-link had been felt--strange, like it had been wrapped in cotton wool. "Dom?" he finally muttered hoarsely, as if his throat was so dry he could hardly get the words out.

Dehydration--another side effect. He probably felt like he'd been twenty-four hours in the Sahara with no water.

"Yeah, it's me," she said gently. Her stomach twisted, bile rising at the back of her throat for a moment before she fought it back down. Ambushing him, drugging him--that had been hard, but it was nothing compared to this. She was about to take advantage of him when he had absolutely no way to defend himself, and it seemed like an entirely different category of betrayal. "You look like shit, babe," she went on, sticking to the role she'd so carefully planned and keeping her voice low and soothing. "Next time, try ducking."

Nathan's head sagged to the side for a moment before he managed to lift it again. She could almost see him trying to think, struggling to work through the fog and figure out what had happened. It had been twenty minutes since she'd given him the injection. By now, his hold on reality had to be getting pretty shaky. He didn't even seem to notice that he was wearing restraints.

"Feel--strange," he murmured faintly. "Can't see straight."

Blurred vision, right on schedule. She just hoped he didn't start to hallucinate until after he told her what they needed to know. "I know. You're lucky to be alive, lout. Trying to take that place out on your own was pretty stupid, Summers." Domino put all the forced humor into her voice that would have been there if this was what she was pretending it was, another confrontation taking place after one of his stupid spurts of heroism. She was counting on the disassociative effects of the drug - and whatever trust he still had in her - to make him believe it.

Nathan swallowed painfully and closed his eyes for a moment. "What--place?" he rasped. "Don't know--what happened--"

"I'm not surprised," she said lightly. Even lost in a drugged haze, he sounded reluctant to admit that he didn't know what was going on. He hated to feel like he wasn't in control--the thought was too painful, and she shied away from it. "You took a pretty bad hit to the head. It's getting to be a bad habit, Nate. Keep it up and one of these days you're going to permanently scramble that excuse for a brain."

He made a strange, soft hoarse sound. It took her a moment to realize that it was a laugh. "Always--nagging," he murmured, his head starting to sink down towards his chest for a moment before he caught himself. "Missed--that, you know." The words came out soft, almost wistful. "Missed you--"

Domino's throat closed up, and for a moment she couldn't say anything. "You always say the sweetest things," she finally managed, just barely keeping the tears back. She looked away, wiping at her eyes hurriedly. "But I didn't come look for you to hear you tell me you missed my nagging," she continued.

Nathan raised his head, blinking at her again, as if he were struggling to focus. Domino hesitated, suddenly unsure. If he remembered why she HAD come looking for him--but no, she didn't see that in his expression. Just confusion, and something tentative and hopeful, that almost brought the tears back to her eyes.

"You--came looking for me?"

Keep smiling. Voice light. She'd played a role countless times. This was no different. She wouldn't LET it be any different. "Of course I did," she said. "Heard through the grapevine that you might need a little help, so here I am."

"No," he said fitfully, that tentative something dissolving back into confusion. "I wouldn't have called you--I didn't--"

Domino gave a calculated shrug. "You didn't, actually. But we both know that it's the times you don't call me that you really need me."

Nathan started to shake his head and then winced, his jaw clenching. "Not--true," he gasped out, swallowing convulsively.

"Oh? Give me a break, old man." Over where he was leaning against the wall, Miguel was chewing on his lower lip in the sole nervous mannerism she'd ever noticed in him. It didn't take a telepath to know what he was thinking, but she couldn't speed things up. If she didn't do this with some semblance of care, it wouldn't work. "Strange place to be pulling an op like this," she murmured. "Does Sam know you're here blowing up things in his backyard?"

"Coincidence," Nathan said hazily. "Don't--want him involved. Don't want--anyone involved--" He flinched suddenly, his breathing quickening as his gaze fell on the wall behind her.

She didn't really want to know what he was seeing. "Typical," she said severely, noting worriedly that his words were getting slurred--not a lot, but enough to indicate his level of consciousness was changing. She had to keep his attention on her, keep him as focused as she could. "But I'm here now, Nate. Why don't we see if we can't do a better job at this together?" He stiffened in the chair, shaking his head slightly as if in denial, and she grimaced. "Come on, Nate," she said more softly. "Talk to me--please?"

"About what? You--and me?" He shivered and gave another travesty of a laugh. "Don't think so, Dom--stop trying to distract me. My turn this time--"

"Your turn to do what?" Domino asked in the same sarcastic voice she would have used if this had been an ordinary conversation and he was balking because she'd gotten too close to something he didn't want to talk about. "Stop being so obscure, Nate."

He didn't fall for it, though. "My turn--" he muttered weakly. "I--can do it on my own. Not--that hard a target."

Domino leaned forward in her chair, her eyes narrowing. There we go-- "Oh, right," she said with a derisive snort. "Given the shape you're in, I buy that, sure. How many of them were there, anyway? Twenty?" She had to be careful. He was too suspicious, even drugged to the gills. If she moved too quickly here, he'd smell a rat.

Nathan managed to give her a look as if he thought she'd just lost her mind. Quite an accomplishment, given that his eyes wouldn't focus and he could barely seem to keep them open. "Forget--how t'count or something?" he muttered. "Four--just four. Not--even any of the psis--"

Psis? Crap, what have we gotten ourselves into? Miguel was scowling, but Domino ignored him. "Okay," she said carefully. "So maybe I was exaggerating. You know me." The warily bewildered look Nathan had been given her vanished, and he nodded slowly, his breathing slowing back down again. "I mean, give me a little credit. I know a tiny little installation like that wouldn't have twenty people in it--"

Nathan blinked. "I--don't get it," he murmured feebly. "You were--there, but you don't sound--like you know--"

Domino laughed. It sounded forced, even to her. "Come on, Summers, I'm just pulling your leg. I know it's not tiny."

"Don't--understand you sometimes," he muttered, apparently buying her excuse. He was used to her teasing him incessantly, she thought with a pang. "Coal mines--are BIG places, Dom--"

Bingo. Domino closed her eyes, just for an instant. Then she took a deep breath and opened them again, knowing that this wasn't over yet. A few more pertinent details had to be extracted. Don't blow it now.

Miguel nodded at her, looking immensely relieved. Domino ignored him and focused back on Nathan. Almost over. She still had to be careful. "Right," she said flippantly. "Weird name, it had--what was it again?"

He hesitated for a moment, long enough to make her heart skip a few beats in her chest. "Abandoned--old company, Castlewood," he murmured raggedly, his eyes moving back and forth as if he was reading off a computer screen. "Down--in the coal mine--shields them. One of their listening posts."

"Oh, perfect," Miguel murmured in a barely audible voice, hope suddenly blazing in his eyes.

Domino nodded. "A listening post," she said softly. Exactly the sort of place that might have this spyware they were looking for. "Old abandoned mine in Castlewood." Her voice broke, despite her best efforts to keep it steady. "Thanks, Nate."

Miguel pointed at the door, miming unfolding what was probably supposed to be a map, and she nodded. He went out, presumably back to the vans, and Domino got up out of her chair, walking to the opposite end of the table where she'd left the case with the second syringe sitting open. She took it out and looked back at Nathan.

"I'm just going to give you something to help you sleep, okay?" she said, her voice still unsteady. It was just Valium, but her supplier had told her, when she'd mentioned her worries about the dosage level she'd need to use, that the sedative would counter the worst of the scopolamine's side effects--or at least keep him unconscious for a while, to give them the chance to pass.

"I'm--glad you came back, Dom," Nathan murmured suddenly, his voice sounding almost fragile for a moment.

"Yeah?" she said hoarsely, kneeling down beside him again.

"I've--wanted to talk to you for so long," he murmured, and there was so much hurt in the words that she had to stop her attempts to find a vein and close her eyes to keep the tears back. "I've--made such a m-mess of things--Kelly and Apocalypse and S-Scott--"

"It's okay," she whispered.

"No--it's not, but I couldn't--tell anyone. Had to be strong for J-Jean--had to sit there and pretend--I couldn't feel them all BLAMING me--" He trailed off, shivering, and Domino reached up and cringed as she laid a hand against his forehead.

Hot to the touch. And fever wasn't good--it meant she'd given him too much. Nathan was almost impossible to deal with when he was delirious--she had no choice, she HAD to sedate him. "If they blame you, they're idiots," she said, finding a vein on the first try. She didn't have to fake the fierceness in her voice, not this time.

"I'm--sorry," he murmured brokenly, his eyes staring off into the distance, as if he'd forgotten she was there. "So--sorry--"

"Nathan," she whispered painfully. Apologizing--he was apologizing? Not to her, she was sure--but to someone. Scott? "Just--take it easy, okay?"

"Don't leave me--everyone always leaves me--"

Domino slid the needle out of his arm and let it fall to the floor as she wrapped her arms around him, hugging him as tightly as she could. "I'm not going anywhere," she said raggedly as he shivered in her arms. "It's okay, Nate.

"Don't leave--" he pleaded faintly.

She closed her eyes and held him until the sedative took effect and he slipped into unconsciousness.

***

"You're not coming, are you?" Miguel murmured from behind her as she stood in the doorway and stared at the bed and its unmoving occupant.

She'd found the small bedroom here on the first floor, and gotten Miguel to help her carry Nathan in here when he'd come back to the house. "I can't leave him until I'm sure he's all right," she said in a low voice, not looking around at Miguel. "I just--can't." She jumped as Miguel laid a hand on her shoulder.

"I didn't think you could," he said gently. "It's all right, Dom. You've--kind of gone above and beyond today already." She nodded jerkily, not trusting her voice. His recognition that she'd reached her limit was blessing enough. More than she deserved. "You have to promise me something, though," he went on, his voice more serious now.

"What?"

"Leave the restraints and the collar on him." That made her turn to him as she looked up in protest, but he shook his head, the set of his jaw making his determination perfectly clear. "Dom, he's got a psychoactive drug in his system, and even without his powers, he's a lot stronger physically than you are. You don't want to take the chance."

He was right. Damn him, but he was right. She opened her mouth to admit it, but Miguel was suddenly slipping past her, moving to the bed. He undid one of the heavy cuffs, sliding it around one of the pieces of the wrought-iron headboard and then fastening it back around Nathan's wrist. Straightening, he met Domino's eyes without a trace of discomfort. "I trust your judgement," he said evenly. "But I don't like taking chances, either."

Domino laughed without humor. "Yeah, whatever," she said hoarsely as he came back to the doorway. "Call me, Garcia," she said as levelly as she could, looking up to meet his eyes. "Be careful. Tell the boys that, too."

"Always," he said softly. He looked almost hesitantly for a moment, as if there was something he wanted to say to her. But the opportunity passed, and in the next instant he was nodding at her, his features composing themselves in a professional mask.

She moved aside to let him pass, and listened to him leave, to the sound of the door shutting firmly behind him and the van pulling out of the driveway. It seemed so ironic to have done this for them, and to be standing here, listening to them leave to finish the mission without her.

But this was what she had to do. Domino took a deep, shaky breath and went over to the bed. "You'll be okay," she whispered to Nathan, far more tremulously than she'd intended as she reached down and smoothed sweat-damp silver hair away from his forehead. He was definitely feverish--

He made a soft noise, almost a whimper, as she touched him, and her hand flew to her mouth involuntarily to stifle her own reaction. She forced herself to reach back down and check his pulse. It was still too fast, but steadier.

"I'm sorry," she managed through a throat that felt like it was closing up again. "I'm so sorry, Nate."

Even in drugged sleep, he was restless. As she watched, his features twisted with something close to pain before smoothing out again. He was dreaming, she thought, seeing the way his eyes moved back and forth beneath closed lids.

She didn't touch him again. Didn't trust her control if she did. Straightening, she turned and walked out of the room, leaving the door open. There had to be something she could do while she was waiting, Domino thought as she came out into the main part of the house. Something to keep her mind occupied.

Her gaze fell on the windows that had been shattered by Mack's explosives, and she nodded to herself almost absently.

It wasn't hard to find what she needed. There was a broom and dustpan in the front hall cupboard. She swept up the glass carefully, taking her time about it. There were shards all the way over on the other side of the room, blown there by the force of the explosion. She wanted to make sure she got it all.

While she was in the basement, looking for something to put the glass debris into, she found a few sheets of plywood and a small toolbox, so she took them upstairs with her and nailed the plywood into place over the gaping hole where the window had been. She felt better when she had, for some reason. As if fixing his window meant something.

As if she could repair what she'd done that easily.

Getting herself another cup of coffee, she sat down on the couch, staring blankly at the opposite wall, trying to sort through it all. What choice had she had? she thought almost desperately. She'd given him a chance to tell her, but he hadn't. Domino felt another irrational little surge of anger at the memory of his flat voice, the utter coldness in his eyes.

Damn him for forcing her to this. Why couldn't he have understood? She couldn't have bowed to his pride, or his stubborness, whatever the hell it had been, and let her team lose everything they had, maybe even their lives. If it had just been her, only her life in the balance, she probably would have taken her chances. But it wasn't, it was Miguel and Rick and Adam and Mack and Barclay--and they were good people, worthy of loyalty. They didn't deserve to get caught in the middle of history that had nothing to do with them.

But he hadn't understood. He wouldn't understand. Even if she had him put the psi-link back, let him see everything she was thinking and feeling, it wouldn't do any good. She knew that, instinctively.

For a telepath, he could be remarkably unsympathetic. A short, despairing laugh escaped her. Maybe if she threw the Yucatan back in his face? Pointed out that it wasn't just her who'd transgressed--

The idea of treating this like some sort of tit-for-tat made her feel ill. It wouldn't be fair. More than that, it would be a lie in the worst sense of the word, because she'd forgiven him for the Yucatan. It had taken years, and a lot of water under the bridge, but she'd forgiven him. She couldn't--take that back. Wouldn't, even if she could. They were too far past that now.

Too much water under the bridge. Restless, Domino got up and prowled the house, searching for something, anything to keep her distracted. But there was very little here, she soon noticed as she went from room to room. All the essentials were here, even some things she'd never have expected to find in a house of Nathan's - what the hell was he doing with a shoe-buffer? - but there was nothing of him. No sign that he'd even been here before.

Heading back downstairs into the central part of the house, she went over to the bookcase and browsed aimlessly. Popular novels, mostly, yet another sign that they weren't Nathan's. He tended to avoid pop-lit like the plague, except for the bizarre fascination with Tom Clancy. She'd never understood that, but he liked the damned things, so--

Domino bit her lip and tried to push the memories back away where they belonged. She continued browsing through the bookcase until she settled on a particularly ridiculous looking romance with a medieval setting, and sat back down on the couch to read. It was the sort of thing she might have read at another time just to get a good hearty laugh.

All it was right now was something to do.

Somewhere around page 150, when the swooning heroine was in the process of being kidnapped, Domino drifted into a restless doze. Too little sleep and too much stress over the last week, was her last half-conscious thought as she tumbled into a strange, confused dream about trying to help Nathan, who was really the knight trying to rescue her, climb into her tower window. Only he was too heavy with his armor on, and his weight was pulling her out of the window. She had to let go of him, had no choice if she wanted to save herself, but he stared up at her with those cold, cold eyes and told her to 'keep telling yourself that, it'll make you feel better'. And she couldn't, so they both fell--

The soft trill of her cellular phone interrupted the dream and she sat bolt upright, the book falling to the floor as she fumbled to get the phone out of her pocket. "Yeah," she said hoarsely, trying to get her eyes all the way open so she could check her watch.

"Dom? You okay?" It was Miguel's voice on the other end of the phone.

"Fine," she muttered, rubbing her eyes with one hand. *Two am--?* She'd been asleep for four hours? Shit, she hadn't intended to do that! "Everyone okay?" she asked, coughing to clear her throat.

"Cakewalk, Dom," Miguel said, sounding relieved. "Absolute fucking cakewalk. We got in and out with no problem--they ran instead of fought, can you believe that? Not that I'm looking a gift horse in the mouth or anything."

Weird, she thought distractedly, but dismissed it from mind. The details of how it had gone down weren't too bad; so long as everyone was okay, all she cared about was the end result. "Did Rick find what we needed?" she asked.

"All of it," Miguel said. "He's sitting in the back seat glued to his laptop--says he's never seen anything like these programs." He gave a breathless laugh. "I think he's making copies."

Domino closed her eyes. "Typical," she said, unable to hold back a pained sigh. She should feel relieved, but all she felt was tired, nap or no nap.

"Dom? You still there?"

"Yeah," she muttered. "Tell Rick not to get carried away. You guys can head back to the hotel and arrange the drop-off for tomorrow. I'll meet you back there sometime mid-afternoon, maybe."

"You sure? We could swing by and pick you back up--"

"I'm sure." Domino got up, wincing at how stiff she was. She had to check on Nathan. "I'm fine," she went on before Miguel could say anything. "I just--need to stay for a while longer." They had what they needed--now she had to do what she needed to do. Resolve things, if that was possible. "You left the one van, right?"

"Right." There were a few moments of static-laden silence, and when Miguel continued, she heard something very different in his voice. "Just--take care, all right?"

Domino smiled humorously. "Always," she said. "See you tomorrow." She hit the button to end the conversation before he could respond and shoved the phone back in her pocket.

Hopefully he'd take her seriously and not double back to check on her or something, she thought, and started across to the bedroom door to check on Nathan. Halfway there, she heard the sound of metal clinking against metal, growing louder with each repetition and she quickened her pace, cursing.

"Nathan!" she said as she reached the doorway and saw him pulling at the restraints with increasing force. "Stop that!" He froze at the sound of her voice, and the hazy, panicked look in his eyes made her stop and approach him a little more carefully. "It's okay," she said softly. He still looked quite a ways out of it. "Calm down, it's just me." Okay, so maybe that wasn't the best thing to say given what she'd done to him tonight, but it was what had popped into mind.

Nathan pulled once more at the restraints, more feebly. If she needed any further proof that the drug was still in his system, the fact that he wasn't managing to yank the headboard right off its bolts would do it. Domino stopped beside the bed, keeping a few steps between them just to be safe.

"It's okay," she repeated gently, gauging his lack of reaction to her words and wondering what he'd do if she took the cuffs off him. She wanted to, but she didn't want to get into a wrestling match with him either.

Shivering, Nathan slumped back against the bed, blinking rapidly at something off to her left. She crouched down in his line of sight, still careful to keep that little bit of distance between them. "Nate? Can you hear me?"

Staring right through her, he croaked something in Askani and then squeezed his eyes shut, his breathing getting heavy and the color going from his flushed face.

Domino grimaced. "Damn it," she breathed, and reached out hesitantly to check his pulse. But he almost--convulsed at her touch, pulling back from her as far as he could, a weak moan escaping him as he started to pull fitfully at the restraints again.

Her heart jumping up to somewhere in the vicinity of her throat, Domino pulled her hand back sharply. "Shit," she muttered painfully. "Nate--" Her voice broke for a moment, but she went on anyway, trying to make the words as soothing as she could. "Nate, it's all right. Just calm down--you're okay." Just still hallucinating or something-- "Nate, I can't take those off you until I know you're not going to go for my throat. Do you understand that?"

She reached out to him again, but he pulled away from her again, struggling more wildly. If she needed any proof that the drug was still in his system, the fact that he wasn't ripping the bed apart trying to get out of the restraints would do it. Frustrated, Domino backed off a little.

"Nathan," she said helplessly, and was rewarded by another few cracked, mumbled words in Askani as he sagged back against the bed, curling up on his side as much as he could, considering the restraints. Shuddering violently, he kept muttering in that weak, raspy voice, and Domino could hear the emotion in the words, even if she couldn't understand them. She knew how to read his voice. There was defiance there, and anger, and barely suppressed despair--

"Are you talking to me?" she asked softly, urgently, remaining at a distance. "Nate? Come on, babe, you know I can't understand Askani." And she didn't dare take the collar off to let him communicate telepathically. If he was still hallucinating, letting him have access to more of his telekinesis than he needed to hold back the virus would be a Very Bad Thing.

He gave a cracked laugh and kept shivering as he repeated a string of words over and over again, his tone vehement despite the weakness of his voice. Domino bit her lip and listened, trying to catch any word she knew. But her Askani vocabulary was limited to a few creative curses, pretty much, and whatever he was saying, it wasn't anything she knew.

But what his body language was telling her was all too obvious. Domino folded her arms across her chest, almost hugging herself. I can't just leave him like this until that damned drug wears off. He wasn't behaving violently. He was afraid, and instinct told her it was the restraints provoking the reaction. She wasn't even sure he knew it was her standing here. He was reacting to her voice, but was it really her voice he was hearing?

Miguel would have her head, but she couldn't leave him like this. Domino took a deep breath and then circled around to the other side of the bed, so that Nathan's back was to her. "Easy," she murmured gently as she sat on the edge of the bed. He broke off mid-word and moaned again, drawing further in on himself. "It's okay, Nathan. I'm just going to take those off you. It's all right." She scooted over closer to him, and reached up and started to undo the restraints, very slowly. "Just take it easy--" She took off the left cuff first; it was closest, with how he'd tangled himself up, struggling.

Bad call, she thought as she found herself pinned to the bed. That one free hand of his locked tightly around her throat and squeezed. He'd moved incredibly fast, flipping over and pinning her before she could react, and the eyes glaring down at her were nowhere in the same neighbourhood as sane.

"Nate--" she gasped out. "Let--go!"

He spat something in Askani at her, his voice shaking despite the hate in it, and then repeated the phrase from a minute ago, something verging on hysteria edging the words this time.

She was struck by two things, even as spots started to swim across her vision. One, he was still shaking so hard that she was surprised he could manage to hold onto her.

Two, he was crying.

But she couldn't breathe. When there was someone trying to choke the life out of you, a certain reaction was dictated by the rules of self-preservation. Getting a hand free, she slammed a fist into his ribs as hard as she could and felt something crack beneath the blow. He reeled back a little, letting go of her throat, and she managed to get a little leverage and push him off.

A little too hard. He slid right off the bed, landing on the floor with a thump as the chain grated across the wrought iron of the headboard, sliding free. Domino pushed herself back up, coughing, and slid rapidly off the end of the bed, falling into a defensive position as soon as she came to her feet.

"Nathan, damn it--" she started to say, her voice breaking around the edges, but she trailed off as she saw him sprawled awkwardly on the floor. He was breathing, his chest rising and falling in a shallow, if regular rhythm, but he wasn't moving. "Shit," Domino rasped and crouched down next to him. She saw the red welt on his forehead, disappearing into his hair, and cursed again, this time more vehemently, as she looked up, mentally charting the course of his fall and realizing that he must have hit his head on the bedside table.

This day had just gone really wrong from the start, she thought despairingly, checking him for other injuries. His unconscious reaction of pain when she probed lightly at the spot where she'd just hit him told her that she probably had cracked one of his ribs after all, and tears of anger blurred her vision again, just for a moment.

To hell with the day. Frankly, she'd give her right arm to go back and start the whole damned week over again.

Wishful thinking. What is, is. With a pained, hoarse laugh, Domino stood, and managed, with a great deal of effort, to get Nathan back on the bed. He was limp, dead weight, and didn't stir throughout the whole laborious process. Once she had him on the bed, she removed the other cuff and threw the restraints into the corner of the room, almost violently. She'd precipitated this. No way in hell was she putting the damned things back on him.

She did not, however, even consider removing the collar.

***

Mismatched eyes fluttered open and studied her blankly for a moment. Sitting on the edge of the bed, Domino stiffened for a moment, but then forced herself to relax.

"Hey," she said quietly, and lifted the ice pack off his forehead, regarding the welt there critically. It wasn't swelling up, which was good, but he was going to have another colorful bruise at the least.

But despite that, he was better than he had been a few hours ago. His fever had broken, and his heart rate was back down to a reasonable speed. The scopolamine had to be wearing off, finally.

She could see him trying to gather his thoughts, struggling against the grogginess. It took a while, and it was almost fascinating, from a strictly scientific perspective of course, to see that 'get the fuck away from me' look forming in slow motion.

Domino swallowed and straightened, sliding off the bed and taking the ice pack with her. "Nate?" she asked questioningly. He closed his eyes for a moment, and then pulled himself laboriously up to a sitting position, swinging his feet over the edge of the bed. "Take it easy," Domino said worriedly. "You've been out for a while."

Nathan ignored her. Using the headboard for leverage, he got to his feet--and immediately staggered, nearly falling again. She took a step forward, but froze as he shook his head. "Don't touch me," he croaked, and stumbled into the bathroom.

Domino followed him anyway. By the time she came through the door he was kneeling in front of the toilet, retching violently. She swore softly and crouched down beside him, trying to steady him as much as she could. "It's okay," she said helplessly. "Just breathe, Nate--" It could be the head injuries, or the drug--or both.

It seemed to go on forever, even after there was nothing left in his stomach to come up. Eventually, though, the nausea appeared to fade--or maybe he'd just wrestled it under control, she couldn't be sure. She knew the level of control he could exert over his body when he put his mind to it.

Nathan wiped his mouth with a shaking hand and sagged sideways against the wall, breathing rapidly.

"Are you okay?" Domino asked. "Nathan?" He closed his eyes with a strange, shuddering sigh, and she grimaced. "Come on, Nate, talk to me."

Still nothing. "Okay," she said with a sigh of her own. He seemed lucid enough, at least, and she was almost painfully grateful for that. "Let me get that collar off," she went on, reaching towards it.

Nathan flinched away violently. His eyes flew open and fixed on her face, the unfocused glare full of enough anger to melt steel. "Don't," he rasped. "Don't--even--just don't."

Domino swallowed. "Nathan--you'll feel better once it's--just let me take it off. Please."

"Making you uncomfortable?" he said hoarsely.

She straightened, meeting his eyes as levelly as she could. "Yes," she said forthrightly.

"Join the fucking club." But he didn't move as she reached forward again and touched the lock panel in the right sequence to get the collar to open.

The tension seemed to drain out of him like water through a sieve as she removed it gently and leaned back, giving him some room. The speed of the change in him was remarkable, she thought dully, setting the collar aside. He was breathing more regularly already, and a little color was coming back to his face. Even the glare was looking a little more convincing.

"How are you feeling?" she managed. It came out in barely a whisper. She was too busy trying to fight the urge to look away, to break this staring contest they seemed to be in.

Nathan gave a cracked laugh and then reached up to grab the towel rack, using it to haul himself back to his feet. "No," he rasped as she reached out to steady him. "Don't--TOUCH me."

Domino backed against the wall and he staggered past her, back into the bedroom. She leaned against the wall for a moment, breathing deeply until she'd pulled herself back to some semblance of calm. Then, moving mechanically, she filled the glass sitting on the counter with water from the tap and went back into the bedroom.

He was already curled back up on the bed again, lying on his side and facing the opposite wall. Domino sat back down on the edge of the bed, ignoring the way he stiffened. "Nathan, you need to drink something," she said neutrally. "You're dehydrated."

After a moment, he sat up again, leaning back against the headboard. His hands didn't seem quite steady, so she helped him drink. "Slowly," she said as he gulped at the water. "You don't want to be sick again."

When he'd drunk about half the glass, she set it on the bedside table. He stared back at her for a moment and then laid back down again in the same position, his back to her. It was as clear a statement as she could expect, she supposed.

"How do you feel?" she asked in that same cool, neutral voice. He didn't answer. She took a deep breath, then another. "Nathan, answer me. I gave you too high a dose, and I need to know how you feel."

"Tired." His voice was weaker than it had been, if not quite so gravelly. "Sore. Head feels like it's going to blow up, and I can't see straight. That enough, or should I write you a fucking novel?"

"That's enough," she murmured, and got up, fighting to keep her expression composed. "Get some sleep."

There was no answer this time. Then again, she hadn't really expected one.

***

Domino stared out the kitchen window at the sunrise. The sky was lightening into a pale, pale blue, cloudless save for the occasional rose-tinted cirrus cloud at the eastern horizon. Looks like it's going to be a nice day, she thought emptily. Lovely.

She heard movement on the other side of the room, and turned to see Nathan standing in the doorway, staring at her. "You're awake," she said, unnecessarily.

"You're observant." His voice still sounded hoarse, but stronger than it had been. He walked over to the refrigerator and took out a bottled water. "Tapwater here tastes like crap," he said shortly, opening it and taking a long sip. His hands were still shaking slightly, and he was blinking as if his vision wasn't quite clear.

"Oh." Yeah, you're sounding just brillant this morning, Dom. She studied him, half-warily, half-anxiously. Despite whatever lingering physical effects were bothering him, he looked calm--too calm. It didn't match with the seething heat she could suddenly sense in the place in her mind where their psi-link had seemingly begun to reestablish itself.

He wouldn't meet her eyes. He stared past her, out the window, and took another sip of his water. The silence dragged on, and on, until she was about ready to scream at the tension in the air.

"Say something," she finally said, the words coming out hoarse, twisted by emotion she wouldn't let herself acknowledge.

Only then did he look at her. His expression was so blank she couldn't even call it cold. "You got what you wanted, I assume," he said in a voice that matched. "Why are you still here?"

Domino felt something change in what she was sensing. There was--uncertainty, there. "You assume?" The muscles along his jaw clenched, and heat flared in his eyes again. She shook her head slowly. Memory loss. She hadn't--dared to hope that the scopolamine would have that effect, too. Her supplier had warned her that it didn't always. "You don't remember, do you?" she pushed.

Nathan's eye blazed with light and he flung the bottle aside. "No, I don't remember!" he snarled at her, livid with anger. "I don't have a fucking clue what you did while I was under! Are you happy to hear that?" He half-turned, slamming a fist into the refrigerator door hard enough to leave a sizeable dent. "I'm so sick of being used," he said in a shaking voice. "Stab your eyes--"

She gritted her teeth. "Spare me the guilt trip, Summers," she grated out, trying to keep her voice steady. "If you'd told me what I wanted to know--"

Nathan gave a harsh, grating laugh, and she trailed off, shocked by the sound. "They're all dead," he rasped. "Your friends, I mean. Probably you too, if they did get those programs--" His eyes narrowed, and she felt the remains of the link pulse more vividly for a moment. The fire in his eyes faded suddenly, collapsing into ashes, and what she sensed now was a weird combination of despair and mirth and pain. "They did, I see," he muttered, and leaned back against the refrigerator as if he didn't trust his legs to hold him. Another one of those alarming laughs, softer than the first, escaped him. "Bad call on your part, Dom. You can survive running from the United States government - I should know - but you don't have any way to defend yourself against the Dark Sisterhood."

Domino stared at him, frozen. "The what?" she finally asked, not understanding.

Nathan started to laugh again, laughter that sounded closer to sobs. "You didn't know?" he finally gasped out. "Oh, that's too funny, Dom, it really is. You're stealing from one of the most dangerous organizations on the planet, and you didn't know?"

"What," she forced out in a ragged voice, "is the Dark Sisterhood?"

"Witches," Nathan said unevenly. "Or at least that's how they started out. Women with power, Dom, and they're--they've been pulling the strings of world history for CENTURIES. They make the Hellfire Club look like amateurs." He managed finally to stop laughing and meet her eyes. "You're dead," he said raggedly. "You and your whole team. If they stole those programs, the Sisterhood knows, and there's no way to change that, no way you can fight back."

Domino shook her head, hardly able to form a response. "Why didn't--why didn't you TELL me?" Her voice rose despite herself, and she took a step forward, shaking hands clenching into fists at her side. He was serious, she could see that, but--no, it couldn't be like he said. There was always a way to fight back.

"Dead," he muttered wildly, and the fear and despair in his voice hit her like a physical blow. Whether he was right or not, he believed it. "All they have to do is whisper in the right ear, and it's done. You won't see it coming, because it'll come from everywhere--"

"Damn you!" she shouted at him, and strode across the kitchen, pushing him back against the refrigerator. "We didn't KNOW, Nathan! You could have warned me!"

"When?" he snarled suddenly, and pushed her away. She staggered, but caught herself, regaining her balance. "Oh, wait, let me guess--you didn't think to ask me while I was under?" He glared down at her contemptuously. "Too bad the de-aging didn't take on your brain, too. You're slipping, babe--"

Domino bit back a curse and backed off a step. "Damn you," she breathed raggedly. He'd let them walk into this, held back information like this? "When did we get to the point where you don't bother telling me there's a bullet coming that I need to dodge? You could have TOLD ME!"

"YOU COULD HAVE ASKED!" he roared at her. "Why didn't you? Too confident you knew exactly what you were doing, exactly what had to be done? Give me a break!" He spat an Askani curse that sounded absolutely foul. "And now you're trying to put it all on me? I'd tell you to go fuck yourself, woman, but you've already done that!" His laugh was hard and bitter this time. "Amazing that life should suddenly up and decide to be fair like that, no?"

He was serious. Completely serious. And there was a part of him that was almost glad--she could feel that tiny, half-ashamed flicker of savage pleasure at the situation, and it just about shredded the last of her self-control. "So, how do you know all this?" Domino asked almost feverishly, hating him with such a passion at that moment that she could almost taste it. She turned away so that he couldn't see her face, because she couldn't control her expression anymore, and she wouldn't give him the satisfaction. "What's this private war of yours all about, Nate? Another fucking holy cause for you to try and martyr yourself for? That's really, really getting old--"

He grabbed her from behind and slammed her up against the refrigerator, hard enough that she knew she'd have bruises. "I am getting--SO tired of hearing that," he hissed at her, and his eyes looked just like they had when he'd pinned her to the bed hours ago. "Every time we talk, you throw that in my face. Every--single--fucking--TIME!" His words grew more frenzied as he went on. "You know what picture I have of you in my mind, Dom? It's you sneering at me, laughing at me, making jokes about my martyr complex! You've never tried to understand, not once! You're so damned selfish--"

"Selfish?" she all but shrieked in his face. "I'M selfish?" Rage flooded up inside her, casting her vision in red, and she got a hand free, slamming it into his side again, going right for the rib she'd broken earlier. His reaction - a grunt of pain, a flinch - gave her an opening, again, and she pushed him away as hard as she could, following it up with a fist to the jaw.

He staggered, but didn't go down. She saw and felt his last bit of control slip, but before she could react, he stepped forward and hit her back.

Not as hard as he could have. One good left hook could have shattered her jaw like glass, and they both knew it, but he didn't put even half of what he had into it. Even so, it was enough to knock her on her ass, and she shook her head desperately, trying to clear it, as he loomed over her.

"Yes. You, selfish. You haven't grown in all the time I've known you, you know," he said in a curiously neutral voice. "Not deep down. You want to. You want more than what you have, but you're too much of a fucking coward to do anything but run when things go bad."

Domino pulled herself back up. Her jaw was numb, but she forced it to work. "You can say that to me?" she gasped out. "You? You fucking HYPOCRITE!"

"At least I had a life." The words were cold and contemptuous, delivered as if they were gospel truth.

"Like HELL you did!" she snarled at him, reaching out and trying to push him away, to make him give her some space. He blocked her, and for a moment, they strained against each other, fighting for leverage, before his greater strength won out and he had her pinned against the refrigerator again. The rest of the words flowed out in a bitter, hating, angry flood, taking on a life of their own. "You don't have a life, you stupid bastard! You can't exist without something to fight, and you know what? You know the sad truth about your whole miserable existence, Nathan DAYSPRING?"

Something cried out at her to stop, but she blocked it out, pushed the little voice away, and went on. "You LOSE, Nathan!" she shouted in his face. "You lose EVERY TIME! You don't save people, you get them killed!"

His expression froze.

"You couldn't save your people! They died because you were a second-rate excuse for a leader!"

He was so close to her, she felt his breath catch in his throat.

"You couldn't even save Kelly from some stupid geek of a college student with a handgun! How did that feel, Nate? Or did you do it on purpose? Were you jealous that HE might have changed things, made the world a better place? Did that slow you down while you were running to save him, lover? Is that why you forgot you were telekinetic and tried to TACKLE the poor son of a bitch?"

The place in her mind where the psi-link had been contracted. Folding in on itself like a flower, wilting.

She didn't feel it. All she wanted was to hurt him.

"But do you know what's the worst? It's what happens to the people stupid enough to love you! Aliya, Tyler, your father--they die, Nathan, they all FUCKING DIE AND IT'S YOUR FAULT!!"

He took a staggering step backwards, his face almost grey and his eyes wider than she'd ever seen them before. Wide and suddenly vacant, utterly empty of him, of anything.

Then something snapped in her head, broke with a sound like thunder. The world seemed to spin around her and she reeled, staggering. *The psi-link?* she thought dazedly. She couldn't feel him anymore, couldn't--

She saw him lunge at her, and reacted without thinking, barely managing to block a blow that numbed her arm to the shoulder. Whirling out of range, she fell into a defensive position, blinking to clear her vision, staring at him uncomprehendingly, her senses still reeling from that sudden shattering--

There was no recognition in his eyes. There was nothing there, no light, no anger, nothing but emptiness. Death.

Then he came at her again. He wasn't holding back this time. He fought as if she was Stryfe, or Apocalypse, as if she was everything he hated and he had to erase her from his world. All her anger at him wavered and fell into ashes as she fought. There wasn't time for anger, wasn't room for anything but block and attack. More of the first, less of the second. She was faster than he was, lighter on her feet, but he was stronger.

So much stronger. A blow got through, snapping her head around and bloodying her nose. But he'd overextended, and she turned her staggering step backwards into a spin, coming out of it with a high kick that connected solidly with his chest, cracking another rib and sending him backwards, too.

Only a moment's breathing space and then they were dancing again.

Block. She blocked a quick jab from him, and managed only to bruise her knuckles on the techno-organic side of his jaw as he dodged.

Strike. His kick caught her solidly in the midsection, and wheezing for breath, staggering backwards, she barely managed to keep to her feet.

Dodge. She ducked under his next attack, whirling and nearly taking his head off with a roundhouse kick.

Block. He recovered almost instantly, too fast for someone working on his third concussion of the day, and blocked her next attack almost casually.

Strike. He feinted, then followed it up with a right cross that would have shattered concrete, and probably killed her if it had connected. Only the fact that she knew him so well, knew the way he moved, let her see it coming in time to get out of the way.

A dance, she thought light-headedly, barely managing to keep the step between them that she needed to keep him from getting his hands on her and pounding her into the ground like a tent peg. One step. Room to move, room to breathe--

One miscalculation on her part, the tiniest bit of an opening, and she was airborne as he threw her. Airborne, then crashing to the ground, landing in a bad position and feeling something crack in her arm with the force of impact. She managed to turn it into a roll, getting out of range of the kick before it connected and coming back to her feet. But she was backed up against the cupboards, trapped, and he knew it, he was already there--

Trapped.

Cornered.

And he wasn't holding anything back. The realization hit like a cold shock, and the last bit of hesitation, the shreds of guilt she didn't want to admit were there, vanished.

If she wanted to live, she couldn't hold anything back, either.

She took his first blow, knowing she couldn't dodge it. His fist snapped out and her head hit the cupboard hard. His hand clamped down on her injured arm, twisting it, and a cry that was half a snarl of rage escaped her. She slammed a fist into his ribs again. Once, twice, three times, knowing it had to hurt like hell, but either he was past feeling it or not just not letting himself--

His hand locked around her throat again, and began to squeeze again, more seriously this time. She fumbled with her free hand for something, anything on the counter that she could--

Nathan slipped, losing both his footing and his grip on her.

The water, she processed in a flash. The bottle he'd thrown aside while they were arguing, this was where it had landed--

Luck was on her side. As usual.

She stepped around the puddle, and tore into him like the proverbial chainsaw, holding nothing back. Hammering mercilessly at his injured ribs again a couple of times, enough to double him over, she followed it up with an uppercut to his jaw - the flesh-and-bone side this time - and an elbow to the solar plexus. Then, as he was staggering, losing his balance, she dislocated his right knee with one well-placed kick, and he went down.

As soon as he did, Domino flung herself at her bag, slung over the back of one of the kitchen chairs. She pulled her gun out and whirled, expecting Nathan to be right behind her.

He wasn't. He was still trying to get up, and he froze, turning to a statue in an instant as she leveled the gun at him and took the safety off.

"Enough," she said thickly, wiping the blood away from her mouth. The gun barely shook. She was moderately proud of herself. "That's absolutely fucking ENOUGH, Nathan!"

He tried to get up and collapsed in an awkward heap as his knee refused to hold his weight. His laugh turned into a moan. "Thought--you had to die," he choked out. There was some sanity back in his voice, on his face. She didn't know whether or not to trust it. "Isn't--that what you said?"

Domino stared at him for a long, utterly bewildered moment, and then shook herself out of it, bringing the gun that had been dipping downwards back up to bear on him. "I don't know what the fuck you're talking about," she rasped, limping as she circled around to stand behind him. He pulled himself up to a sitting position, first, and then a half-kneeling position that had to hurt like hell. For some reason he stopped there, and didn't try to get back to his feet. She probably would have pulled the trigger on him if he had.

He would have killed her. He'd been TRYING to kill her--and whose fault was that? Nausea rose up at the back of her throat as she remembered her own words. How could she have--anger was no excuse, no fucking excuse at all--

He gave a weak, anguished laugh, his shoulders shaking with it. "It's what you--said. Everyone--I love dies, and it's my fault--I get them killed, or kill them--"

Her mouth worked silently as she tried to say something, seached desperately for words. For a moment she was so glad she was behind him, so that she couldn't see his eyes--

"And I'm going to get you killed," Nathan went on raggedly. "Because I wasn't--because I didn't keep it from you, you're going to die, and Bright Lady, how I hate you for that, Dom--for that most of all--"

"Shut up." The words came out in a whisper. "I'm not going to stand here and listen to you wallow in self-pity." Every dish in the kitchen rattled, and she caught her finger tightening on the trigger. "Stop it!" she almost cried.

"Make me," he breathed, and laughed softly, another agonized laugh that was nearly a sob. "Make me, please--shoot me, do us both a favor, Dom, SHOOT ME!"

The gun wavered. She couldn't seem to hold it steady. "Damn you," she almost whimpered, and let it fall to her side. Pain welled up inside her like a flood, and she barely managed to hold it back. Swaying, she staggered around and fell to her knees in front of him, the tears coursing freely down her face.

"Anyone but me," she choked out, understanding. What she'd said to him, what she'd said--

It was a lie, and he believed it with all his broken heart. It was the untruth he told himself every day, that he could have survived hearing from anyone else but her.

She was the only one in the world who could destroy him by spitting his own self-hatred back in his face.

And she had.

What a night's work. What a fucking night's work.

He was never going to forgive her for this.

She was never going to forgive herself.

Reversing her grip on the gun, Domino handed it to him. He stared down at her with those empty eyes, tears mingling with the blood on his face, and took it, his hand closing around it almost spasmodically. For a moment he held it between them, and she thought he was going to use it, either on her or himself.

Then it clattered to the ground, and he was pulling her towards him and kissing her.

It wasn't a kiss of caring, and didn't have anything to do with needing comfort. It was a hard, angry, bruising kiss, all about hate and desperation and pain.

For a heartbeat, she thought she felt the current between them changing, fighting to escape back into a familiar path, and she pushed herself against him, her fingers tangling in his hair as the kiss went on and on and on until her lungs burned for lack of air.

Then it was over. They all but collapsed against each other, both shaking, clinging to each other for one last anguished moment.

She was crying, harder than she could ever remember crying for him, for them both.

"Get out," he whispered, and she heard the tears in his voice, too, before all the emotion drained away and left only emptiness behind. "Get--out."

Half-blinded by her tears, Domino staggered to her feet, managing to grab the keys to the van off the counter as she stumbled towards the front door.

Her hand fell on the doorknob. *Don't look back,* she thought, opening the door and walking out into the new sunlight.

And she didn't look back.

fin

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