Hey guys. This story takes over where Nevermore left us hanging with that massive cliffhanger. I have no idea what's going to take place in the next book, but since we won't be getting any more Cal, Niko, and Robin until winter, I figured I might as well fill the void and have a little fun with my own version of what could happen. I hope you enjoy, and please leave me some feedback.

I felt my heart start before anything else registered in my mind. One beat, two beats, three. Then I remembered where I was, and my grey eyes fluttered open against the hazy water. Waves of heaviness pulled me downward, tugging at me even as a second grip fought to yank me back to the surface. Back to air.

Air. You never really appreciate it until you're being strangled by a lightning flinging, newly resurrected god and drowning underneath twenty feet of fish refuse. It's a crying shame.

Robin's grip on my arm was slipping, tightening, and slipping again as he fought to drag my waterlogged ass to the surface. Slipping because he was drowning, tightening because he was a stubborn bastard and he wasn't about to throw in the towel and leave me behind, like any sensible person would have done.

I couldn't see Niko or Cal, but they had to be close. They'd better be, because the situation had officially reached the level of screwed that required drastic measures, ergo if I had to fuck up mini-me's sanity to save all our lives, I would.

I ripped a hole open around us. Hoped that we were close together, that Niko hadn't managed to ninja breast stroke his way to the surface already. There was no way I had the energy to make a second trip.

We plummeted into Goodfellow's apartment accompanied by hundreds of gallons of water that sloshed across the floor and up over the furniture, scattering the expensive pottery and artifacts and liquor bottles into the corners and against the walls. His grip on my arm intensified as he choked and hacked air back into his lungs. I could feel his fingernails digging into my wrist until they drew blood. Good. He was alive. Probably going to kill me later, but alive now.

A fish flopped and splashed by my elbow as I coughed up my share of fluids. My arms refused to cooperate as I tried to push myself up, hindered further when I sliced my palm against a shard of glass hidden under the foot of water that was finally beginning to settle around us. Probably from some ancient and irreplaceably rare bottle of wine. I almost felt bad about that. Almost.

Finally on my knees I scanned the room for my brother and murder face kid, and movement behind the couch caught my eye. Good. Either it was them or I had inadvertently gated a small shark into the apartment, which wouldn't even surprise me at this stage in the game. From the sound of the retching, it had to be Niko. I staggered to my feet, pulling Robin up and along for the ride. His string of expletives magnified the bitch of a headache that was throbbing above my eye. At least he hadn't stabbed me yet, though from the state of his apartment he was probably well on his way to doing just that.

That was his problem. I had mine. I had plenty of mine. But as I waded through the water to the other side of the couch I was greeted with the biggest baddest problem at present. Cal was blue, eyes half lidded, not breathing.

Fuck.

Niko was puking his kelp tea guts out, either from nearly drowning or experiencing the joy that is gating for the first time. He had a hand fisted in Cal's shirt, frantically pounding against his chest to get him to breathe. I was all for his enthusiasm, but Niko was in no state to be doing anything right now and if Cal passed the point of deader than dead and stayed dead...well, I wouldn't really be around to care. It was beyond a miracle I was still here at all.

I shoved Niko to the side with barely any effort. That in itself was worrying, but he was alive and I'd worry about him once I was sure I had a later to worry in. I began compressions on Cal, pressing hard and fast. Broken ribs were a certainty, but he would deal with that. He owed me anyway for being a piss poor version of myself the previous night. I breathed into him and continued the compressions.

"Wake. The. Fuck. Up. You. Bastard," I grated out, and breathed for him again. Niko stumbled back to my side and gripped Cal's hand tightly, as though his iron clad will alone could bring him back. Hell, maybe it was enough, because Cal chose that moment to open his eyes wide and spew out half the Atlantic Ocean. Satisfied, I released him and slumped back in the water against the couch, allowing Niko to take over.

"It's okay," Niko ground out, trying his best not to gag. His usually tan face was still tinged green. His hands shook minutely as he gently turned Cal over, holding him slightly out of the water and keeping a hand on his back as water continued to pour out his mouth. "It's okay, little brother. You're okay."

Robin was less silent. "He's okay?" he said, voice rising, "We're okay?" he stood up, fingers trying to wring some water out of his sleeve. "We're okay?" he said again, flinging his arms wide.

Champion of mental breakdowns that I was, I could recognize one when it was ready to erupt. "We're all alive, Robin," I said, "Four for four. That's good enough for me."

"Yes, well, we all can't be blessed with your sunny optimism, Caliban, and would you please be so kind as to remove that glacier of glass from your hand before you manage to sever something vital and bleed over my already decimated apartment?"

I glanced at my hand. The shard was still there, embedded deep. I flexed my fingers once, paused, and then pulled. It came free with a sucking sound, and released a small stream of blood. I tossed the glass back into the water. "There. Happy?" I glanced at Cal, pleased to see the little bastard was doing fine. Breathing fine, moving fine, not going Auphe and trying to flay the three of us with his teeth fine.

"No, that is not gamou better," Goodfellow snapped, grabbing my wrist and pressing the wound against my jeans. Sanitary. "Hades himself will furthermore be a more welcome guest here than you. There was less devastation in Pompeii after Mount Vesuvius erupted, less wreckage when the Titans themselves were set loose on all of Greece!"

"Oh, come off it. Now your just being a grumpy drama queen," I said dryly, peeling some strands of dripping hair out of my eyes with my good hand, "I'm the root of all evil? Not the Vigil and their test tube happy experimentation? Not the bloodthirsty god taking his new vessel for a joyride, trying to fry us with lightning and string us up by our necks? Not the rabid shadow weasels and the football field of a slave ship we just sprinted?"

"It should not be possible. Skata. It should not be possible!" Robin raged, ignoring me as he released my wrist and vaulted to his feet again. "How could those pea brained idiots have managed to resurrect Tyr?"

"Seeing as their usual reaction to a threat is a suitcase nuke or a sniper rifle, I'm just as shocked as you are at the change in tactics," I admitted, "But I'm putting it down to the fact that they're pea brained idiots that it went this fucking badly."

"What happened?" Cal broke in hoarsely, and resumed coughing up his spleen.

I glanced at him. He had managed to sit up and was swaying a bit, supported by Niko's hand at his back. It was putting it lightly that I didn't have any fond feelings for this kid. If my future existence wasn't dependant on his miraculous survival, I might have even tried to kill him a time or two these past few days. Or ten times, or twenty, or at the very least sliced off a finger. He had been a big enough dick to merit that. But even I didn't dislike him enough to wish this conversation upon him. What happened? You really want to know what happened? Guess what kiddo, Daddy dearest gave you the genetic makeup of the biggest fucktastic monster that's ever sliced and clawed its' way across this planet. You're an abomination terrifying enough to make Stephen King wet his expensive, high thread count sheets, and over the next several years of your life you'll almost lose your humanity more times than I even want to remember. Do you wanna see a really sick trick? Wanna really make your eyes bleed? Pay attention while I slice a hole in the world.

What happened? Shit. Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit.

"Well," I drawled, stalling, "Once upon a time, in a galaxy far, far away, there was this crazed fruit loop of a god that-"

"No," he interrupted, and cleared his throat, "How did we get..." he gestured at the apartment, splashed a hand through the water around him, "Here? How the hell did we get here?"

"Pool party," I said, moving my hand to wring out some of my hair, "After all that drowning I figured we needed some downtime. Robin's gonna have his driver bring up beach balls and foam noodles and some of those floaties that you secure around your arms. You know, the ones with cute yellow duckies. Maybe we'll even bob for bottles of alcohol. Call all the people you don't absolutely loathe and invite them over. It's going to be one hell of a spring break."

Cal's glare deepened. I could tell he really had no idea, that he just thought I was playing with him again. Niko, however, was calm. As calm as he had been while talking on the phone to me when I was drowning from viral pneumonia in a hotel office. As calm as that night Sawney had eaten a fist sized chunk of flesh and muscle out of my chest. As calm as he had been when he had pushed both of us off the roof of the hospital to fall sixteen floors when there was no other escape from the Auphe. Some people yelled when they were upset. Some people threw punches. When Niko was upset, really upset, he became calm.

His serene grey eyes flicked from Cal to me, and back again.

He knew.

Or he had a pretty good idea. It wasn't too surprising that he would figure it out. Unfortunate, but not surprising. Goddamn it, how much of the future was I changing? They already knew Robin a year early, and now this? There needed to be a manual available on all this time travel crap. Hell, maybe I'd write one if I survived all this, title it "Don't Fucking Time Travel" and send it to the presses. Give Nik a signed copy, if only to get an amused smile out of him. If he survived this time around. Please, please let him survive this time around...

"How did we get here?" Cal demanded again, the persistent little shit.

Okay, then. No more stalling. I leaned heavily against the dripping couch and gave Niko an apologetic smile before turning seriously to Cal. "Genetics," I said.