Sleep came quickly as Tisk's body gratefully shut down functions in an attempt to heal his wounds, without the benefit of the regen meds that his hybridized system demanded. His brain function though, remained, aware, anxious and distracted. He was at the cricket with Bolo and one side was blatantly cheating - only Bolo couldn't see it. Tisk felt the building frustration of a semi aware dream state as he tried to explain it all to his mate. One by one, the players, all dressed in archaic whites were being felled; crimson blooming on their pristine shirts as their heads were caved in by cricket balls. He turned to Bolo again, determined to convince him but Bolo's eyes disappeared behind a flash of his glasses.

In that dazzling flash as the flat Australian light hit the lenses of Bolo's spectacles, the cricket match melted away and reformed into the charnel house of Rei's holodeck program. The yellow grid of the holodeck seared so brightly into Tisk's mind that his body jolted him awake with a blast of released adrenaline. He woke stiff, cold and cramped in the seat behind Izak as a blaze of warping stars filled his eyes.

The two humans were silently absorbed in scrolling through reports. Tisk tried to focus, concentrating on their consoles, the lights fast, brilliant and blurring before his half asleep eyes. But concentration shattered into a white light of pain that seared from his jaw to his sinuses.

This was how it had been the last time.

Despair. Misery. The powerlessness of a hybrid orphan; all suddenly exploding in a rush of colour all sound suddenly being drained out in a deathly hiss. He'd grabbed a cord as he'd been sucked out of his seat, a life pod cord. Hand over hand until he'd managed to climb into its coffin like womb. The rush, the sick, dead weight of the 'g' forces as the pod had burst out of the belly of the shuttle.

Then, suddenly the stars had been all around him, his closest companions in the long, cold, silent days that had followed. He'd journeyed through space, on his own, from desolation to a promised land he'd never even known existed; to the Federation and a chance at a life beyond even his most childish dreams.

He fumbled for the med kit again, aware that two sets of eyes had snapped on him. The hypo was preloaded with a pain suppressant and Tisk hit the spray, grateful for the chilly blast against his neck. He sank back to sleep beneath a wave of meds. Izak glared at the hybrid, and watched him fall into slumber once again.

As the little shuttle warped deeper into unclaimed space, only the hums and whirs of the consoles and the air reticulation units broke the quiet. Makarov checked through the calculations he'd been running intermittently since the first attempt on the Vulcan's life. The results had now been verified for the third time. He handed the Padd without comment to Izak.

"Are you sure?" His eyes focused on the hybrid, as he directed the question to his Russian companion.

"Sure." Makarov said quietly. "The discrepancies... could not be computer errors."

"But then why did it work?" Izak asked confused.

"We were, in short, lucky." Makarov replied. "The shield changes coupled with a different comm badge signal than the proposed one, still managed to have the desired effect."

"Although, that would explain why the Vulcan didn't die the first time?"

"Right." Makarov nodded.

"So... did you fuck it up?" Izak glared. "You can tell me. The job is complete, anyway."

"No, Keir." Makarov gulped. He nodded towards the hybrid. "You might want to wake him, though."

"Right." Izak gritted his teeth.

The meds had dumped Tisk savagely back into a dream that felt as if it had started without him. The life pod was suddenly huge, with pathways and walkways that laced through the vaulted spaces, and somewhere high above him, in the interwoven mass of rope and steel and beam and arch, a shadow flitted about, blocking out the stars as it moved.

With an instinct that raised his ridges and stood his scales on end, he realized it was Rei; and that she was hunting.

The blow that knocked him out of his seat felt, in his nightmare scape, to be the sensation of her dropping from above, driving him into the ground. He was calling out her name as Izak's boot collected him in the stomach. The explosion of pain that accompanied it filled his eyes and for a brief glorious moment, he was a kid again, awaiting death and suddenly delivered life via his ship blowing up.

"You want to tell me why you fucked up our plans? Why the shield settings were wrong?" Izak kicked at the hybrid again. "Or shall I just kill you?"

Another blow convinced Tisk that, sadly, his ship wasn't blowing up but whatever skanky piece of shit of a life he had left - was.

"What the fuck …" His response was truncated by another kick, this time in the back. One hand went to his face as the other closed protectively around his damaged ribs.

"The shields! Kasarak!" Izak reinforced his demands with a toe in the ribs. "The shields - ya got 'em wrong."

Pain shot through his abdomen as Tisk sacrificed his jaw with his second hand to try to shield his ribs but to no avail. He choked on a half sucked in breath as Izak's boot found his liver with a sickening squish.

"There's a fuckin war on …" Tisk grunted, "… probably changed the mongrels … security"

"Possible." Izak nodded, mocking acceptance. ".... but unlikely!" He roared as he kicked at the hybrid.

"You were too fuckin slow …" Tisk rolled up, ribs catching the last of his breath in a vice of sharp jabs. " ... talk too fuckin much ..."

"Yes, my dear. Whatever you say …" Izak said as he kicked again.

"If you're gunna kill me then do it -" Tisk gasped, nursing his wounds and rolling over to look up at his Cardassian assailant. His voice came in uneven breaths. " - or else don't break anything you can't fix."

He didn't have the energy or the jaw mobility to argue his case any more eloquently. Full of meds that made him sluggish, his brain felt stupid and slow. The shock of Izak's attack and the realization that his deception had now failed on every level possible had stripped away what little energy he had left. Right now, all he wanted was to sleep and heal. It was all he could do.

There was a reason why, outside Federation space, hybrids tended to be sickly and die young; those who made it into adulthood rarely lived much past their forties. They were high maintenance, hybrids - exotics - it cost a bit to keep them healthy. He sat up against the wall, holding his tender abdomen, feeling his liver throbbing against his rib cage, redefining the bruises there. Izak might be planning to beat him slowly to death, if that was the case, then the sooner the bastard got it over with the better really.

Izak drew his phaser and prepared to fire.

So the sleazy prick was going to shoot him after all, Tisk thought wearily, aware of the cool resilience of the shuttle wall at his back as he rolled back against it in surrender.

It would be quick at least.

Tisk's dull, drug affected consciousness registered his imminent death with something that felt very much like relief. He was faintly surprised. He'd anticipated death before this; had even longed for it on occasion as a child and had expected it to have found him long before this. But now death, in the shape of a phaser wielded by the Section 31 psycho, seemed to beckon with the promise of a long peaceful painless sleep and he realised just how gladly he welcomed it.

"I am the captain of my destiny, Mr. Kendrak. You had a chance to join our quest. But now I th......."

Izak was knocked to the floor of the shuttle as the shuttle suddenly crashed out of warp. "What the...." He shouted as the shuttle thrust dangerously from side to side. Izak crunched against the shuttle door, his arm made a satisfying crack before the phaser was knocked clear of his hands.

Makarov crawled along the floor to the front of the shuttle from where he had been knocked down also. The lights were flickering now and power was obviously being lost. Some kind of gas was leaking near the back. If it wasn't shut down they'd all be dead soon.

Izak was cradling his arm now. "See what you can do, traitor." He shouted to Kendrak, indicating the gas. "It might save your life...."

Feeling his ribs tearing at his chest with each racking cough Tisk stumbled forward onto his knees, moving painfully towards the rear stabilizer ports and their leaking mist of containment gasses, as the shuttle bucked and twisted madly.

Izak now shouted towards Makarov. "What the hell is it? Asteroid field?"

Makarov pulled himself up onto his chair struggling against the gravity, which was rising as the shuttle slowed. "I..... will..... drop......warp...." Izak said as he gritted his teeth struggling to reach the console.

As he reached out to the button and barely managed to press it, the shuttle jerked wildly as it dropped out of warp. After a minute or two the shuttle finally came to a rest.

The mad rush of stars at warp had gone in an instant, replaced by the endless vault of space, infinitely black. Tisk had barely a moment to contemplate the absence of star fields before the cruel bite of the gas pierced his lungs. He pulled himself up hand over hand, rising above the settling gas and searched for any kind of emergency venting system. His movements and his thought processes both seemed appallingly slow and fumblingly inept.

He noticed red lines spiraling upwards in a pulsating visual alarm, which resonated in time with the audible one, and they seemed to Tisk to be the logical generic control point for a hazardous breach. His fingers caught the signals and found the source of the ruptured conduit. While he concentrated fiercely on shutting down and venting what he could, he was vaguely aware of Izak rapping out questions to Makarov.

"What the hell happened?" Izak gritted his teeth in pain, as he asked the question from where he lay. Makarov had now managed to drag himself onto the NAV chair and was sitting examining various readouts.

He answered, confused. "I... an energy wave.... It's knocked us about pretty hard."

"I can see that!" Izak shouted. "But what was it? A ship firing something? Are we still in danger?"

"I can't say. All sensors are screwed. If it is a ship, and they want to continue the fight, we're dead."

Izak cursed. To come so far, and then end like this? It was like a bad dream. "What power *do* we have?" Izak said as he tried to sit up. The pain in his arm was getting worse. For once, he was glad that Kendrak was aboard. At least his medical knowledge might help him.

"Emergency power only.... everything else is at least an hour away..." Makarov shook his head, as he continued his analysis. "Things aren't looking good, Keir."

"Tell me about it." Izak yelped as he saw the bone in his arm poke out of his skin. He fell back onto the floor.

Pain returned at the first chance it had. Breathing shallowly, Tisk turned and leant against the console that he'd just used and looked back up at the helm. Makarov's hands were still moving rapidly over the controls, trying to halt the sudden drain and to rescue what energy he could from the remaining systems. The only hopeful note that he could see was Izak collapsing in a heap.

For a long moment, Tisk remained where he was as his body attacked him for the abuse it had suffered. Each breath was an adventure in pain and he felt the familiar, bitter nausea, which resulted from liver damage, settling into his guts. The spreading stain on Izak's Cardassian uniform was hypnotically comforting until Tisk finally had to remind his dazed and beaten head to think cannily, craftily, cunningly.

Then he forced himself to move as Izak slumped into the chair behind the Russian and nursed his arm, which was now bleeding profusely. The med kit contained a generic arterial seal, which Tisk removed along with a clotting med and dermal occlusion padd, then he moved stiffly and painfully forward the few steps to where Izak sat in a growing pool of blood.

Izak breathed heavily. He was amazed he had even managed to get up onto the chair. His arm was more painful than anything he had known, and that was really saying something. Izak shot a glance to the back of the shuttle. The Kasarak had actually managed to secure the gas leak. Perhaps he would be useful; at least, until they got to Orias. Still, Izak concluded, a traitor is a traitor. Every good patriot knew what to do with a traitor.

Bending over was impossible, the combination of ribs and liver injuries ran riot as his body compressed, so Tisk slipped onto his knees beside the spy and silently went about his business. The wound was deep, a flash of white bone through the bloody mess caught by the faint star light, and the rhythmic swell of blood indicating the source of the arterial tear. It was a simple piece of triage, nothing that a well trained Starfleet Security Officer with the requisite skills in battlefield med couldn't handle. After a few moments Tisk sat back on his heels, his breath whistling slightly, and looked up from Izak's arm into the blunt muzzle of a phaser being held steadily in the spy's other hand.

Izak struggled to his feet, and stood up slowly and carefully, looming over the hybrid.

"Well done, Tisk." Izak nodded. "Thanks to you, at least we won't die of gas poisoning. One of us..... will die, though." Izak lifted the phaser.

Tisk stared past the weapon into the scaled face of the faux Cardassian. The words cost him, but he formed them anyway, aware they might be the last ones he made. "Ungrateful bastard aren't ya - cur."

A discordant pattern of clicks and strikes from the helm, as Makarov continued his efforts to re-energize the little ship, and the sibilant sound of Tisk's own breathing were the only sounds to fill the cabin. The phaser in Izak's hand slowly began to take on a purplish cast and for a moment Tisk wondered if he was about to pass out - the loss of colour definition being one of the first indicators.

Makarov swore in colorful and romantic Russian.

The purple light grew stronger and Tisk raised his eyes from the weapon but instead of the vast expanse of dead space greeting his eyes, it was the sight of two massive drifting energy beings hovering off the point of the shuttle, dwarfing the little ship and eating up the black immensity of this isolated area of space.

"Oh....... My........." Izak's jaw dropped as he turned to see the huge energy creatures filling the viewscreen. He dropped the phaser, and stumbled back to the front of the shuttle.

Tisk flinched as his jaw attempted to drop, only to be caught by the regen force field clamped around his lower face. He'd seen Security Reports on these beings - the Enterprise had liberated one from Farpoint Station - a long time ago. Sentient, powerful creatures that lived in close companionship with a mate - they were a rarity within Federation space. Now they hung, hugely before him and Tisk had the sensation that the occupants of this sordid little ship were being examined with a detached interest by a completely alien intelligence.

Izak whispered towards Makarov. "What the hell?"

"Some kind.... some kind of creature.... I....." Makarov was gobsmacked.

"Just what we needed." Izak cursed. He turned back towards Tisk, who appeared to be as gobsmacked as the Russian. Weak minds, Izak concluded. Izak suddenly spotted the phaser on the ground, and ducked down to pick it up. Tiskil didn't even seem to notice.

Izak stood tall and moved over to the Bacardie. He cocked his head as he took a final look at him.

The sight of the creatures, their tendrils of pure energy drifting beneath their massive domed bodies recalled a similar feeling of awe and wonder that Tisk had experienced once before, off the point, at Byron, a female humpback had breached alongside him. He'd sat quietly, awestruck, legs wrapped around his bobbing surfboard as an eye the size of the sky had examined him, before she'd silently slipped away beneath the water; her vast body pouring past him, her size defying comprehension - till her wide winged tail was swallowed and he was left alone on an open sea.

The creatures ate up so much space that he couldn't take in their entirety in a glance. As his eyes tried to refocus, he saw in his peripheral vision Izak's hand still gripping the phaser. In the purple light, the Cardassian's features took on a surreal appearance, framed as Izak was, by the massive but seemingly fragile bulk of the energy beings behind him.

Izak seemed an irritating insignificance before the simple grandeur of the creatures and Tisk felt a smile broadening over his face as he looked past the phaser and the twisted human that held it and fed on the sight of the magnificent beings. A humming, from the creatures or from his own thready blood pressure, he was unsure which, filled his ears and the warm purple light seemed to be flooding the cabin of the little ship.

Another light, brighter, harsher, containing all the colours of the universe bled through the purple and with a last conscious thought before the colours all turned to black and silence, he recognised the phaser fire.

"I'll be sure to piss on you from heaven." Izak spat as he fired the phaser. The colorful energy beam shot out as per normal, but then slowed and changed shape, it moved to within inches of Tiskil's face before imploding back into the phaser.

"Aaaaaaaaarrrrggggggghhhhhhh......" Izak's hand shook as his skin was burnt by the phaser. He dropped the phaser in a melted mass of metals onto the shuttle floor. He looked down at his hand. There was nothing left but blood. All the skin had been burnt off.

"What the hell just happened?!?" Izak cried as he fell to his knees cradling his hand.

"The creatures...." Makarov gulped, not daring to move. "They stopped the beam somehow..."

"Get us out of here!" Izak yelped, now on his back, and promptly passed out.

Makarov risked it, and punched the warp control. The shuttle shook uncontrollably, and almost flew apart, but he managed to guide it out of danger.

Makarov looked to the back of the shuttle. Izak lay bleeding, and nearby Tisk was out cold as well. Makarov pondered whether he should finish the Bacardie off. "Better wait for the boss on that one..." he decided, and remarked to himself.

Fiore sat at his desk and calmly did his paperwork. Every once in a while he would glance at his wife as she stood at one of the windows overlooking Capital City. It was sunny today. The first sunny day they'd had in a week and Delani was taking advantage of it by ridding their children of their cabin fever. So now the day care center on the sixth floor was overrun with five rugrats and one baby. Normally she was the calm island of peace in their hectic life and while she gave off that impression today Fiore saw the worry that she mercilessly tramped down, felt it through the connection they shared with one another.

He sort of wished she'd stayed home. The children would be better off in the sunshine and running around the house grounds than in a business building in the middle of the city. He understood her need to be here, though, because as much as she was his island of peace he was her rock and once in a while she needed to cling to him. So he said nothing and enjoyed the way the sun played on her hair and turned her skin a gold shade of caramel.

His secretary came in escorting a deliveryman from the cafe across the street. Sandwiches, salads and sodas were placed on the coffee table at the other end of the room between the couch and two chairs. The view out the windows was equally spectacular but went unnoticed by the occupants of the room as Delani turned and looked at the secretary with a raised eyebrow.

"I'm sorry, V'ala Viktor, no word yet." She said with a slight bow of apology. Delani nodded and turned back to the window. "Will you be needing anything else sir?"

"No, thank you, Liep. Enjoy your lunch," Fiore replied with a smile and watched the two walk out. His eyes shifted back to his wife.

Who idly asked, "Do you find her attractive?"

"Liep? Yes, I find her attractive," he said honestly. "I notice that a lot of women are pretty. I'd be dead if I didn't know how to appreciate beauty."

"Mmmmm. Do you appreciate her beauty...up close and personal?" She turned from the window with a smile and Fiore knew she was just kidding with him.

He put down his padd and walked over to her. "Pretty women pale in comparison to the one who fascinates me endlessly," he said as he took her in his arms and held her close. "I love you, Delani. No one else."

She grinned and kissed his neck. "And you know I'd kill you if you ever cheated on me."

"I certainly hope so. Hungry?"

"Famished."

They looked at each other for a moment. "For the food," they said in unison and laughing they went to eat.

It was sometime later that Delani found herself lying on the couch drifting in and out of sleep as she watched Fiore show their daughter Shuliye-who was still trying to fly to the Prophets by leaping off the shed-the members of the family pictured on his wall map of Bajor. Delani watched as the four year old's fingers brushed the faces of everyone she could reach and pointed at those she could not all the while talking excitedly to her father.

Delani's own brown eyes traveled across the map Recantha ... Tohzat ... Mousilla ... then stopped on Kendra Valley. Against the dark blue background of their picture sat Rei. Standing next to her with her hand on Rei's shoulder was Dori. Both smiled at the camera as if neither had a care in the world. Over in her office in the Minister's Hall Delani knew that a similar picture rested on Dori's desk. That one, however, was of a more intimate moment. The two of them were looking at each other and laughing at some joke, Rei's hand resting on Dori's, not knowing that the photographer had taken the shot. Rei's eyes were happy and showed none of the turmoil Dori said they'd been filled with upon her return to Bajor.

Because of him.

All because of one Tiskil Kendrak...to whom they owed so much...Shai'tal's life...Rei's life...

And now they owed the emotional and mental chaos of her and Ian Bolin to him as well.

Which probably wasn't fair or completely true but she didn't give a shit right now.

Dori had met them at the terminal in Capital City and driven them home. Rei had blown her lantern out and stumbled up to her room. Ian and Dori sat in the living room in the late hours of the night and when she asked what was wrong with Rei Ian told her about Tisk.

She'd shown him to a guest room and he slept until late morning. Rei, on the other hand, took off in her car at dawn loaded down with a bottle of vodka and three bottles of scotch.

Now Ian was having nightmares almost every night and everyone was praying that Rei wouldn't be stupid enough to drive drunk and get herself killed. Dori hadn't gone into full worried mode just yet. Rei, she said, was probably holed up someplace, rotting her liver and brooding. The trick was to find her.

And, well, Delani had enough worry for everyone. She looked over to the picture of Jania and wondered if she and Dori had found Rei yet.

"Men are not worth this aggravation!" Dori slammed her hand on the steering wheel as she and Jania drove along the highway.

Her feet resting on the dashboard, Jania played with a padd and grinned. "They're good for some things. Gotta admit that...WORK YOU FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT!!" She slammed the padd against the door.

"Do you MIND?!! That's my car you're banging!!"

"Well, I could bang you but I don't swing that way hence the reason I feel that men are good for something."

Dori just shook her head and parked on the side of the road.

Jania looked at her. "If this is a come on I'll have to hurt you."

"Fuck off. Gimme that damn thing." Dori yanked the offending padd out of her hands and looked at it. With an evil grin she showed Jania the ON button and pressed it. Ceremoniously she handed it back.

Jania just looked at her smirking face. "Shut up."

Dori rolled her eyes and got back on the road. "And you call yourself a spook."

"Shut up!"

"Can't even turn on a fucking padd. How the hell do you turn on your dates anyway? Point a gun at them and say 'Please me or die'?"

"SHUT UP!!!" She looked down at the padd. "Awww...fuck me."

Dori gave her a look. "No thanks. Dominatrix bitch ain't my type."

"Not that you lunatic! I thought I caught the trace signal from Rei'ani's car!"

That proclamation had the car coming to a screeching halt. "Where?"

Jania smacked the padd again and squinted at the screen. "Somewhere on the-come on you piece of shit system-on the...Recantha coast looks like..." she shook her head and whacked the padd. "Storm's blowing in all over that place and this thing's useless. We're just going to have to keep our eyes peeled."

"Good enough," Dori turned the car around and sped off into the setting sun.

It was a storm to fit her mood.

The liquor bottles had washed out to sea last night. She sort of wished she had them back but...then again she'd stopped noticing the cold and the rain some hours before. Now she sat looking out at the as the storm battered the ocean. The waves rolled and crashed into one another as if mirroring the pain and chaos she felt inside. She was soaked through to the skin, the cold sinking into her bones and making her feel as if it had always been there and would always be with her.

Almost obsessively she went over every moment she'd ever had with him. Looking for a sign, a look, anything that would have told her something. She'd trusted him. Instinct had told her to do that. Never would have pegged him for an assassin.

Then again did he ever trust her? She thought about that for a while and came to the conclusion that he probably hadn't. She'd trusted him and he hadn't trusted her and there was something very lopsided about that. But at least she thought he'd cared.

Bastard.

To the better actor go the awards, she thought mentally saluting him and staring out at the churning ocean. Played her like a fucking violin and she'd fallen for every second of it.

Stupid. So incredibly fucking stupid. She'd lost something somewhere along the line. Some edge, some instinct had rusted over the years like tool left out in the elements too long. Should have spotted a fake a mile away, another assassin, used to be good at that.

So who was she angrier at? Him or herself?

Hard question to answer. Have to think about that one for a while. Another bottle out here would help me think. No, those went bye-bye on the waves last night remember?

Fuck.

Faintly she could hear the engine of a car as it tried to compete against the noise of the storm and fail.

"DO YOU KNOW HOW HARD IT WAS TO FIND YOU?!!"

"COULD YOU NOT JUMP OUT OF THE MOTHER FUCKING CAR WHILE IT'S STILL MOVING?!! MY INSURANCE DOESN'T COVER MORONS!!"

"BITE ME, DORI!!"

"NO THANKS! I'M NOT INTO S&M!"

Rei just put her head into her hands. "What the hell did I do to deserve this?" She could only chuckle at the absurdity. Too bad Anij wasn't here. She'd be laughing her ass off at it all. And suddenly the rain stopped.

No it hadn't Dori was holding a large beach umbrella over her as Jania spread a blanket out. Rei's clothes may have been beyond hope but they'd be damned if they were going to get wet sand on their asses.

They sat on the blanket for a while watching the storm and the ocean fight with each other. Then Dori turned to her. "How do you feel?"

"Like I wanna hit something." They turned to Jania.

Who promptly said, "I don't think so!"

Dori laughed. "Yeah, she's not worth hitting. I mean, how tough can a person be when she can't even turn on a padd?"

"Shut up!" Jania reached over and whacked Dori on the head. "Seriously, chick," she said looking at Rei. "How are you feeling? Because if you're planning on going off the deep end could you tell me now so I won't waste my time trying to get information out of a vegetable later?"

"Spoken like a true spook. I knew there was a reason I missed you, Jania," Rei rolled her eyes and looked at her friend.

Jania shrugged. "I'm an asshole. What can I say?"

Rei shifted and rubbed the back of her neck. "I don't feel so good." She closed her eyes as her stomach threatened to rebel against her.

"Not surprised," Dori muttered pulling two hypos, one for the hangover and one to replace lost nutrients, out of her jacket pocket. "You sucked down four bottles of liquor and you haven't eaten in four days. Dumbass, I'm surprised you're not dead of alcohol poisoning."

The hiss of the hypos was reassuring and Rei closed her eyes as the chemicals were released into her system. "I worried everyone. I'm sorry. Didn't mean to. Just wanted..." She shook her head. "I have no idea. Besides the multitude of problems I've got that prompted me to quit in the first place I just feel...betrayed somehow."

"In what way? You know if we were going to sit on the beach for a while I would have brought a cooler with us." Jania leaned back on her arms.

A streak of lighting flashed in the distance and had everyone looking up at the sky warily.

"Either by him...and who I thought...or who he presented himself to be." Rei said haltingly still not quite sure what was going on in her mind. "The person I cared about wasn't who he really was?...I think that's right. Or else I feel betrayed by myself because my instincts told me to trust him. I knew there was something wrong. I should have dug deeper." She pushed her wet hair off her face. "Great sex. The downfall of any intelligent being."

Jania snapped her fingers and pointed at Dori. "Told ya. Good for something!"

Dori stretched. "I am willing to concede the point where this particular gentleman is concerned." She gave Rei a look. "So what are you gonna do about it?"

Rei was silent for a few moments. "Eat," she answered.

"Eat?" Jania and Dori looked at her then one another.

"Yeah," Rei said as she got up. She stood unsteadily outside the protection of the umbrella the cold rain shocking her system and waking her up a little more. "I haven't eaten in four days, remember?"

The other two women gave each other a look. This wasn't much of an answer but it was a start.