"May there be no blame, obstacle, want, or misery; let no deceiver come behind or before them; may they neither be snared nor wounded, nor seduced, nor burned, nor diverted below the road or above it; may they neither fall over backward nor stumble; keep them on the Green Road, the Green Path."
— Popul Vuh, Part Five

The week immediately following the liberation of Charlotte was probably the most frustrating of John's life. He'd been angrier before, more dissatisfied and discontented, especially during the rougher stretches between the Second Mass' retreat from Boston and their settling in Charleston when it had felt like he was the only sane man left in the group, but for sheer hair-pulling value there was no comparison.

For one, the damn aliens wouldn't leave Tom alone. If it wasn't Cochise interrupting the only five minutes they'd managed to be awake and alone in the same place all day just so the bubblehead could report he'd sent a message to his daddy, it was the Dorniya beaming their messages straight into Tom's head. And not just when he was asleep, either; there was a look he got when he was seeing the ghost of his dead wife that John was learning to recognize, something pinched and stricken that sapped any joy in the moment right out of him. It wasn't even as if they justified the intrusion with good news, either; just more of the same cryptic bullshit as before. Which had led to Ben cornering Tom with a really awkward conversation about 'the good of the many'.

Yeah, like that was going to fucking happen. Personally, John wouldn't give a rat's ass if the rebel Skitters all went down with the rest of their disgusting species, but Tom was the type to get skittish — play on words absolutely intended — about the concept of genocide, and that wasn't even touching what it would do to him to sacrifice one of his own children. On behalf of everyone else who gave a damn about him, no thank you.

Which reminded him of something else that hadn't been happening: the fucking. And not because of any empty threat he might have made during their last argument about making Tom sleep on the couch, either; that had been long forgotten by the time they'd kissed and made up. John had bit the bullet, packed the rest of his shit up and hauled it underground, and even gave Lyle permission to take over the medbus so he could get out of the bachelor's quarters. And half the time, he and Mason barely even managed to get their boots off before they collapsed exhausted into bed.

So much for moving in being a big fucking deal; far as he could tell, all he'd done was trade his valued privacy for a shorter commute and an octopus-armed nighttime space heater.

There were a few bright spots, though. Though he'd be damned if he said as much to Mason.

Spending more time with Tanya, who smiled a little more at him every day, and laughingly refused to give him back his trophy necklace. Helping refit the grid gun to travel on a Caterpillar chassis; working on the BFG was enough to get any gun nut a little hot under the collar. And then there was the spectacle of Dr. Kadar and his slow, awkward pursuit of Anne Glass. Now that Tom's new buddy Dingaan was around to help keep the utilities going, and some chemist named Marty had been picked up with his kids by one of the patrols, the basement-dwelling scientist had a lot more time on his hands. He seemed content to spend most of it with Alexis and her mother, as John had hoped ... and Anne wasn't exactly trying to get away, either. It was revoltingly sweet, and cut down ninety percent on the lingering side-eyed glances she used to give Tom. Win, win in John's book.

Killing cooties, too: three days after they stole several hundred prisoners out from under the fishheads, a fresh wave of Skitters, mechs, and hornets made another strike at Charleston. With Marshall and Fisher's people there to help shore up the defensive line — several of which proved to be at least as accurate with a Beamer-killer as the Second Mass' human snipers, including Fisher herself — the attackers didn't get close enough to plant any more fence posts or fill any more occupied streets with rubble, but there was still plenty of slaughter to go around. John may have got his daughter back, but now that he no longer had to guess at his son's fate, never mind the losses he'd seen since… yeah, he doubted he'd ever get tired of taking those bastards out up close and personal.

Partying with the Berserkers afterward had been as sweet as ever, too. He might sleep under Popetown now rather than in their midst, but he still fought with 'em, bled with 'em, ragged on Lyle for going sweet on the woman who'd drugged him and stole Tector's horse, counted on 'em to look after the folks who mattered when he asked — and they returned that loyalty in full measure. Well, apart from the expected coarse jokes and ill-timed bets one could expect from such a motley bunch. The only time they'd ever really let him down had been in the middle of his snit with Tom, back when the man had strolled into camp after a three months' absence and sucked away all the authority John had managed to assemble in the meantime. And worse — he hadn't even needed to lift a finger to make it happen. No surprise which side they'd chosen, looking back, though it had burned like acid at the time.

If you can't beat 'em, join 'em; that had been Tom's tactic back then, and from a certain perspective, that was what John was doing now, down in the armory with Tom's eldest going over their gear for the next assault. How the wheel turned. Hathaway's folks had been pressing, and Mason had been worried about what the Espheni might have in mind for the man as well; given that they still didn't know when or if the Volm mothership could come back to take down the power plant, Porter and Weaver had greenlighted the trip north.

Though since the element of surprise was already lost, they'd be switching it up a little this time. They'd be taking a route that bypassed Greensboro and heading straight for Richmond, leaving the newly mobile BFG on home guard and taking some of the newly tested goodies from Cochise's treasure chest instead. Concussion ordnance capable of turning boulders to sand should sever those tethers easily enough.

He chuckled to himself, and Hal looked up from the next table over, where he was loading mech metal-jacketed bullets into clips for his own gear-out.

"Something funny?"

John shrugged. "Depends on your point of view, I suppose. It's just ... sometimes I wonder how the hell I ended up here. But then I figure, considering all the far more likely alternatives, better not tempt fate even asking the question. Your dad tells me I'm his counterbalance, you know; but he's been my fixed point since, God, probably the day we met. Took him long enough to get his head out of his ass, but it worked out for the best. We'd probably have torn each other apart, or killed each other eventually, if it had fallen out any different."

"I think you have that a little backward," Hal scoffed, a smirk turning up one corner of his mouth. Then he paused, eyeing John more seriously. "You know ... I've still got my eye on you, and it's gonna stay that way until I'm sure this really isn't just some elaborate long con, but I think I get it, now."

"You think so, huh?" John stared at the kid, surprised. Of Tom's three sons, Hal had been the one he'd fully expected to hold a grudge 'til doomsday; he certainly deserved it. "And what exactly do you think you get?"

Hal just shook his head. "I dunno. It's just ... we all saw it coming with Anne a mile away. We met her just before the group we were with got snapped up by the Second Mass — she was triaging a bunch of survivors in a park, they got attacked when we were nearby, and Dad stopped to help her evacuate her patients. They just latched onto each other after that and didn't really look at anyone else. But you better believe I had a skeptical eye on that, too; we'd just lost our Mom, she'd just lost her family, I wasn't down for putting up with some rebound relationship just because Dad thought we needed a female role model in our lives, you know?"

"So what changed your mind about her?" Because clearly, he had; every last one of the Mason kids had been as angry over Tom leaving Anne in the first place as they had been about him hooking up with John. Less for the littler ones, maybe; but even Matt had been a little squirrely until Tom made it clear he could still call Anne whatever he wanted.

Hal grinned at that, a sharp, dangerous smile that was probably part of why Maggie had gone for a younger guy like him in the first place. He might still be a dumbass teenager, but he had that carbon-steel edge under the surface that Tom had bequeathed to all his children to one degree or another. "Believe it or not? When we figured out the best plan to get Ben back would involve me sneaking into his group with Ricky's cut-off harness strapped to my back. She didn't know Ben; knew Matt more than she did me; hadn't ever fired a gun. But she said she wouldn't let me go in there without every possible advantage. So she grabbed a scalpel, stepped into the cage with the Skitter Dad had dragged back to the school, and stabbed it through the mouth like a total badass."

"She's the one that figured that move out, huh?" John raised his eyebrows. Good for her; he could be a little more magnanimous now that he knew she wasn't threatening his position. "So you figured she was more than just a temporary distraction for your dad."

Hal let that lie a second while he filled a backpack with the clips he'd just finished loading, then cast another sharp look at John. "You know, back in the winter of 1774 to 1775, before they'd even drafted the Declaration of Independence, a bunch of colonists broke into the British armory here in Charleston? They didn't really have any industry for making guns on this side of the ocean yet, but they already knew trouble was coming, and there were all these poorly guarded military facilities stocked to the brim with weapons and powder."

John had an idea where Hal was going with that, but considering the way the kid had opened the conversation, he was willing to humor him. "Gave up on Harry Potter anecdotes, huh? Or do I detect the historical obsessions of a certain Tom Mason in this particular lecture?" he snarked good-naturedly.

Hal chuckled. "Yeah, how'd you guess? He filled my ears on the subject for a while, back when I asked him what was really going through his head when he asked Doc Kadar to modify all those guns with Volm tech, before Jacksonville."

John remembered asking Tom the same thing himself; accusing him of stealing a whole damn armory for John. Remembered Tom's reaction to that, too.

"And did he satisfy your curiosity?" he had to ask.

Hal raised a pointed eyebrow at him, and smirked. "What do you think? But I'm not stupid, you know."

John cleared his throat gruffly, and looked back down at the weapons he'd been cleaning on autopilot. "Well, I think that's about enough on that topic, Junior. But for the record ... I've got no intention of going anywhere. Even if it does mean there's a real danger of the woman who killed my scumbag brother ending up my step-daughter-in-law. Can't wait to see her face the day that penny drops."

Now the kid was the one going a little red in the face, and it was John's turn to smirk; Hal seemed torn whether to react to the killer comment or the in-law one. Mason-baiting; still the sport that kept on giving.

"Hey, and that's enough on that topic," Hal sputtered. "No matter what happens with Dad, if you think I'm ever going to call you Dad, or anything like it, you've got another think coming."

John laughed. "Never crossed my mind. I'm not stupid either, kid."

"Exactly," Hal replied, shooting him another wry look.

Christ, getting the seal of approval from a nineteen-year-old. "All right, whatever; enough bonding time already."

Hal snickered, then shouldered his pack and turned to leave. He stopped at the door, though, looking back with a pensive expression. "Is Dad really doing okay? I know he's said the Dorniya are still being cryptic, and he's hoping tonight's action will distract the Espheni enough for them to risk a clearer connection ... but he seems ... I dunno. More tense than he's saying. Not as bad as right after you guys hiked back from the plane crash, but ... still."

John shook his head. Not a conversation he really wanted to have with Tom's offspring, when he was barely getting any private conversation with Tom himself. But maybe he could use the opening to head another problem off at the pass. "Talk to your brother about that one. When your dad gets on a 'sacrifice for the greater good' kick, it's one thing; but when one of his kids comes at him with it ..." He whistled between his teeth.

Hal's expression went blank and stiff at that. "Ben," he growled under his breath, making a fist at his side. Then he gave John an apologetic grimace. "Uh, thanks, but ..."

"Don't mention it. Really, don't," John waved him off.

...Then about choked, realizing what he'd just done. That had gone beyond intervention to make his own life easier, and straight into the dreaded co-parenting territory. And not for the pair that actually liked him, either. He sighed, shaking his head at himself, and went back to work.

They struck Richmond that night much the same way they'd struck Charlotte, but with the grid gun exchanged for the services of a sapper party sent out in a stealthed Jeep a few days before. The only sticky point on the trip up was when they bypassed Greensboro; they didn't want to have to fight a second army before they even reached their goal, and the tracks they were using were almost within sight of the green-fenced enclosure. They throttled it down, muffled the heat as best they could, doused the lights, and crept on by; they didn't figure the same trick would work on the way back, but the longer it took the Espheni to twig to their actual target, the better.

The planning paid off when they reached Richmond; the concussion grenades from Cochise's party box made an even nicer boom than they'd anticipated, knocking mechs down like ninepins and severing the tether like a charm. The lying-in-wait time also meant the bombers had had time to build a makeshift tree-based slingshot to aim one up into the circling ship's engines; they set it off at the same time they cut the power, a much more satisfactory set of pyrotechnics than the last any of them had seen in the city, when the Second Mass had stumbled into the middle of a death match between opposing squads of Skitters on their original trip south.

The ambush party waiting for them was caught a little off-guard when all the explosions went off at once, and with their overlord distracted by all the crashing and dying, plowing through the attacking mechs and Skitters was even easier than it had been the last time. With Weaver camped on top of Tom back home, playing topside commander for the retaliatory attack they were expecting, Captain Marshall was technically in command of the soldiers; but Cap had reassigned all the irregulars, including Hal and Ben's groups, back under John's authority. They had themselves a hell of a good time rolling in over the disoriented wardens.

But that was when they hit the first bad news of the night: there were a lot fewer people behind those fences than they'd been expecting. There were almost no adult men or women under thirty-five to be seen, which eliminated most of the people Marshall had been looking for; only the visibly crippled, the middle-aged and the old, and a handful of kids too young to feed themselves were left to come out of hiding at the megaphone's call. And just as they were starting to get those loaded, the second piece of bad news arrived.

If John had doubted Tom's assertion that the Espheni were deliberately dicking them around, that night's events would have put paid to it. He didn't know what the fuck the tall, skinny aliens had done to Hathaway, but the man that had walked up holding the hand of a harnessed kid with a fresh wave of escorting mechs and Skitters behind him sounded like a wind-up doll, not the former leader of the free world. It was creepier than even what they had done to Karen.

The Earth was a gift, and they must protect it with their Espheni brothers? Yeah, he was calling a flag on that play. Though the sad part was, there were probably people out there who wouldn't even need the brainwashing to agree; ivory tower ninnies who'd never had to live in the real world before the fishheads broke it. Thank fuck Tom had never been that sort of professor.

It would probably be a kindness to put a bullet through Hathaway's skull. But John knew better than to expect Marshall not to shoot him in turn — or Tom not to be disappointed, later. Good thing he still had his Volm pistol, and knew how to switch it to stun. He opened fire in the middle of the man's speech, then returned the weapon to burn 'em down mode and picked off the nearest enemy Skitter over the sound of Marshall's angry yells.

They lost three of hers and six of his in the ensuing firefight, and a whole cluster of refugees when the mechs started deliberately targeting helpless civilians rather than fighters. And they were still occupied with taking the last of that group down when the third piece of bad news came winging in, the Beamer response time much quicker than it had been at Charlotte.

"SNIPERS!" John called out over the din, the minute the scout reported back over a crackly short-distance walkie-talkie. They'd been expecting to have to fend off fliers, but not that quick; everyone was still busy with the refugees. "Snipers, incoming to the west!"

Denny wasn't with them that night — she was playing D with Weaver's bunch — but Ben, Tector, Ox and Hal all ran for the heavy weapons. Hal's experience was more with a mounted .50 cal, but he could brace and aim well enough, and those four were the closest; John took up one of the anti-aircraft guns as well, skidding into position just in time to lift it and brace against a broken wall, wincing against a faint twinge from his still-healing ankle.

"We can't let any of them report which direction we're going after this!" he heard Marshall calling; good, she'd got her crew in gear, too.

"Don't let 'em get any shots off either!" he called; and then they were on 'em, half a dozen glowing winged shapes stooping in like a swarm of oversized, blue-assed fireflies.

They didn't have time to carefully aim; they just poured fire into the sky until every last one of the craft was raining down in pieces somewhere on the far side of the tracks. It was a good thing there weren't as many people to get out of the city as they'd been expecting, or they'd definitely have lost some to the shrapnel.

He limped over to Marshall after the last one fell, holding both hands up in apology. "Time to make a decision, Lady Cap."

He let her land the first punch, then wiped the blood away from his split lip and caught the next wild fist. "Easy, easy now. He's all right, not that I know what you expect to do with him; you really think people are gonna follow a guy preaching brotherhood with the Overlords? One of your guys should —"

"He's alive! The President's alive!" he heard Lieutenant Shelton calling from behind him, and winced.

"...Yeah, be figuring that out right about now."

Marshall wrested her fist free, then wiped sweat away from her forehead with the back of one blood-streaked hand. "Don't call me Lady Cap," she replied, heatedly. "And don't you ever aim a weapon at the President again!"

"Got him out of the line of fire, didn't it?" he shrugged, not wanting to restart the 'not my President' argument again, and jerked his chin toward the train. "And like I said — time to make a decision. We taking the option to hit Greensboro on the way back, or not?"

She scowled at him, staring at him for a long moment while she wrestled her temper under control, then sighed and shook her head. "Dan said you were an argumentative son-of-a-bitch, but that you usually had a point. Suppose I've seen that for myself, though I don't think much of your methods. What do you recommend?"

"I'd say hit 'em," he shrugged, "but that'd put the refugees we just picked up in harm's way. And in a week or so, these fences might all come right down anyway, if the Volm hold up their end of the deal. We had a specific goal here, with Hathaway; I'd hate to lose more of our own to no real purpose."

Her lips thinned as she thought that over; then she nodded, regretfully. "Full speed back to Charleston, then. And God help the people of Greensboro. Maybe they'll leave them alone, if they don't think we want them."

That was wishful thinking, John was sure; but let her have her delusions. He gave her a sloppy, casual salute, then turned back to yell to his guys — who seemed to be shepherding a crotchety old lunatic with what looked like half an apartment's worth of junk in tow. What the hell? "Get your asses in gear, people! THIS AIN'T AMERICAN PICKERS, YOU WANT TO SAVE YOUR LIFE OR YOU WANT TO SAVE YOUR ARMOIRE?"

He got a few raised middle fingers for his efforts, but it did light a fire under 'em; he might not have Weaver's or even Mason's leadership style, but it got the job done.

Well, one part of it, at least. The risk of a neutron strike on the train was no joke, and there was no guarantee the fishheads wouldn't finally clue in and bomb the tracks before they could make it back home. He didn't even want to think about trying to move so many people in vehicles salvaged on the fly with only what aging diesel they could salvage from the train. And with the fate of Schrödinger's President still uncertain, if in a different way than before, the command structure in Charleston was still in question as far as Marshall's people were concerned.

Still. Another battle won, another victory to bring home to lay at Tom's feet. No dead mice or floral bouquets for John Pope, no sir. Now if only he could think of a way to take advantage of the Dorniya's interference without doing something that would either leave them indentured to yet another alien overlord for the rest of their lives, or result in Tom Mason tearing himself apart afterward ...

Well, there'd be time enough to worry about that when they were all home again. John fingered the comm in his pocket, then regretfully let it go. Unfortunately, giving Greensboro a pass meant holding EMCON on the return trip to keep their signal footprint low; neither side would break it unless the situation was dire. Hopefully, the current silence meant that whatever had come at Charleston that night hadn't proven too hot to handle.

An idea glimmered in the back of John's mind at that thought; a quote he'd seen somewhere recently about communication. Gongs and drums, banners and flags — hadn't that been from the book he'd borrowed off Tom's shelves? He'd have to remember to bring it up to him. Later.

He holstered the Volm pistol again and took up a long rifle as the next wave of Beamers came into view, threatening the last stragglers streaming into the train. "INCOMING!"

One more day after the apocalypse. Saving the planet, one dead alien at a time.

They ended up fending off four more Beamer attacks before cruising down out of the Piedmont onto the coastal plain; two from the west, one from the northeast, and one — the last, and least numerous of them — from the south. Fleeing from Charleston, John figured when he saw the obvious damage on two of the three craft. The second flight had got close enough to fire on the train and damage one of the cars stuffed with refugees, but this one didn't; Ben and Tector, the current snipers on shift, managed to knock all three down in short order.

The city, he soon saw as they got closer, hadn't gotten off so lightly. A rock formed in his throat as he saw the wreck of the main bridge creating a new shoal in the Ashley River — dropped by the defenders, if he had to guess — and several plumes of smoke rising from newly shattered buildings. The rail bridge was still intact, and the sentry posts looked manned, but the city had obviously seen a heavy pounding. The wreckage of several Beamers smoked here and there amid the fresh debris. And perhaps most telling, when they pulled into the rail sheds at last, the BFG was missing ... and so was his President.

Peralta was the one there to greet them, in fact, arm in a sling and a butterfly bandage on her brow. John clenched his jaw as he jumped down from the train, staring at her in consternation.

The VP gave him a wan smile as she glanced down the length of the train, assessing the damage they'd picked up and the number of obviously occupied cars. "Mr. Pope. Captain Marshall," she said, nodding to the uniformed woman as she stepped down after John. "Was your mission successful?"

"More or less," John replied, gruffly. "I see you had the expected trouble here?"

Behind them, the refugees began to disembark; Marshall turned to bark a quick order to her lieutenants and the waiting guards, and the usual orderly dance of mission aftermath began, just a little more slowly than usual.

Peralta nodded, tightly. "You were right; they planned for being hit again, anticipating that the majority of our weaponry would be on the raid. The attacking force was larger than any we'd yet seen, and the Beamers were all loaded with bombs rather than fence posts, one of which impacted at the entrance to the stairwell nearest the conference rooms before we could get the grid gun in position. As you can see, we're still in a bit of disarray."

John swallowed, wondering just how many people they'd lost in that night's work. "No shit, Sherlock," he said, then rolled his eyes a glare from Marshall and corrected himself. "I mean, Madam Vice President."

The title seemed to distract Peralta from the vulgarity, though; her brow furrowed, and she glanced past him toward the train. "When you say more or less — do you mean you retrieved President Hathaway?"

"All in one piece, though I wouldn't recommend letting him at a weapon or a radio anytime soon," he replied, impatiently. "A few anti-psychotics probably wouldn't go amiss, either. Look, if you want to keep on playing twenty questions, I'm game, but I think you know who we were expecting to see here. So if you'll excuse me ..."

Peralta reached out to lay a hand on his arm as he went to storm by, then glanced over at Marshall, her expression sympathetic. "Dan was caught on the fringe of the blast; he seems to be all right, though Anne was concerned he was showing symptoms of a mild heart attack. She wants to keep him overnight."

"I'm sure that went over well," Marshall observed dryly, though her face was drawn with worry.

"Yes, well. Perhaps better than it might have been; I believe he thinks it's mostly to humor her while Lexie and Tom are in there, as well. Lexie exhausted herself blocking most of the debris that would have flooded the stairwell with her ... abilities ... until Dr. Kadar and Mr. Botha could blow it back the other way, and Tom became unresponsive about the same time the strike began. He said something of the kind might happen; do you know what he was talking about?"

The fucking Dorniya. "Maybe," he said. "He thought those new aliens might contact him again. I'll leave Marshall with you for the full run-down; where's the new infirmary?"

"Where the group housing was in the department store space nearest the cafeteria; we finished switching everything over just before we ran the evacuations again," she nodded to him, mouth still pinched. "One of you ought to have told me that this contact was telepathic in nature!"

"Yeah, well, I'm working on him, but you know how Tom is," John said grimly, sharing a commiserating look with the woman.

...Sharing a commiserating look with the woman. Christ. All that bullshit he'd been feeding people about secretly being a productive member of their society; had the joke been on him all along?

...Maybe there was something to all that 'perception becomes the reality' business, after all.

John had seen what the new hospital space had looked like before its transformation, and the current color scheme was definitely an improvement over both its former appearance and the previous infirmary. The walls were now a soothing shade of washed-out denim blue, complementing the plastic sheets still in use as dividers, and the ceiling was a neutral color closer to sand than beige. Someone had actually taken the time to lay tile over the concrete floor and hang patriotic art prints in every cubicle as well, salvaged from God only knew where; the result was a lot more comfortable than it had any right to be, considering the purpose of the place.

John split off from the group of incoming injured the first chance he got, sticking his nose into individual cubicles until he found Lexie — still curled up, sleeping the sleep of the exhausted — and Tom, sprawled out on a pair of beds. Weaver looked up from the chair next to Tom's as John stalked in. He looked a little more pale and worn than usual, but otherwise more stubborn than ever; John wished Anne luck in trying to force him to rest.

"Good, you're back," he greeted John, cantankerously. "So tell me — what the hell is this shit?"

He gestured to Tom, who was shifting and muttering almost constantly atop the sheets, strapped down at knees and elbows to keep him from wriggling right off the bed. The clearest word that John could discern was 'No'; not a good sign in terms of finding a solution to the problem, but at least it meant he was still in there fighting.

"You think I know any better than you?" he snorted. "Aliens don't like what he has to say, I suppose — or vice versa; we both know he can be a stubborn jackass when he feels like it. They're fucking aliens, anyway; no telling what might set them off. I wish we could just kill 'em all and let their own deities sort 'em out."

"Believe me, there are times I wish that, too," Weaver sighed, rubbing a hand over his jaw. Then he gestured to the bed again. "Since this don't seem to be working, how about you give waking him up a try?"

"Seriously?" John gave him a nonplused look. "And how do you suppose I'm gonna do that? It's not like there's a manual for any of this shit."

Weaver wrinkled his nose, wearing an annoyed, long-suffering expression. "He's got at least a subconscious awareness of what's going on around him — once we realized that, we tried bringing Matt in here, but that just got him agitated. And when the rest of us try, all we get is varying degrees of 'don't worry'. Like he's convinced he's gotta protect us. You got tricks in your bag that the rest of us don't, though; so, get to it."

"All right, all right, don't get your panties in a wad — since I'm reliably informed that would be bad for your health," John snarked back. Then he sighed and approached closer to the bed, staring down into Tom's pale, sweating face. He remembered seeing all the kiddos come in and bond with Tom last time he'd been out for a while, laying hands on him one by one; looked like it was his turn, now.

"Here goes nothin'," he said, and reached out to brush the hair back from Tom's forehead. "Hey, asshole ..."

"Pope!" Weaver interrupted, scowling at him. "Insulting him's not really what I had in mind."

"It's me, Cap. You think he'd believe I'd come after him all sweetness and light?" John scoffed. Then he turned back to the figure in the bed, cupping a hand along the side of Tom's face, and tried to block out awareness of anything else. It wasn't hard; the man looked incredibly vulnerable lying there, a target for anyone who wanted to come at him. Made John want to punch everyone who'd ever intentionally hurt him — himself not excluded from that number.

"Yeah, you heard me, Mason," he said, letting the words flow as they came. "What kind of welcome home is this, huh? I bring Hathaway back to you, against all odds, even against logic, and find you sacked out in a room with someone who isn't me. Was that because you didn't think I'd succeed, or because you were afraid that you would? You know, a guy could start to feel unwanted around here ..."

Something weird happened to his head as he said the last few words; a strange pull seemed to emanate from the figure on the bed, combined with a foreign sense of frustration and indignation. Tom's alien shit, maybe? A spike of irrational fear went through him at the contact — and then the world seemed to go all wavy and hazy, and the bed looked really comfortable —

"Goddamnit, ANNE!" he thought he heard Weaver yell, behind him.

Why would he call him Anne? John wondered muzzily as he grabbed for Tom's arm. The whole point of the thing was that he wasn't Anne ...

And then he was blinking his eyes open again, somewhere he definitely hadn't been a moment before.

It only took John a few seconds to realize what must have happened when the freshly painted walls of the infirmary were replaced with the darker blue of a familiar bedroom in Boston. The sheer weirdness of it, however, took a little longer to get over.

"What the hell, Mason?" he blurted, backing away from his lover and dropping his hand. He'd apparently popped into existence in Tom's inner world in the same position he'd been in the outer one, only with both of them upright — and a lot more animation in Tom's wide-eyed expression. "Did you just suck me into the Matrix?"

The dream version of Mason — or vision, whatever — was dressed a lot like the real one; as was John, when he took a second to look down at himself. Was this the way they really thought of each other — was that how this worked? Or was it the way they thought of themselves? Or the alien's image of them? Or had he just passed out and started hallucinating? He really didn't think he was that imaginative, though.

Tom blinked at him; then his expression went cold and hard as he turned toward the doorway behind John.

"No," he said, with a level of loathing in his voice John hadn't heard from him in months; he'd almost forgotten how it felt to hear that tone directed his way. "I've put up with you borrowing Rebecca's face, because I understand the necessity of it. But you do not get to use his, too. Or are you no better than Karen?"

John blinked, then glanced over his shoulder — and went cold and still himself as he saw the woman standing there. He'd caught a glimpse of the photo the princes passed between themselves, so he knew immediately whose face he was seeing, but the flat, creased image hadn't done justice to the reality. Rebecca Mason was a fine-looking redhead, with a wealth of long hair that curled at the ends, professional women's attire and the graceful posture to go with it, a thin necklace around her throat ... and a distinctly puzzled expression. He could see, now, why they said Hal was the one that looked most like his mother, despite his coloring being the closest to Tom's; their features were a lot alike, and he'd learned to read Hal Mason pretty well over the last few years.

She didn't directly answer Tom's question; instead she looked John over, then frowned like any woman finding a strange man in her house in her husband's company. "Were we expecting guests tonight? I'd have appreciated a little more warning, if only because I didn't plan for dinner for six."

Tom hissed in a breath. "If you think that I'm just going to let it go ..." he began, through clenched teeth.

John glanced between the two again, remembering what Tom had said about his previous encounters with the Dorniya, and snagged Tom's arm in a firm grip. "Whoa, whoa," he interrupted. "I don't think she did do this. I mean it, whatever. What happened just before I showed up?"

Tom turned to him again, eyes wild with a tangle of furious emotions. He glanced from John's face to his hand on his forearm and then back to the alien in the doorway, voice as tense as strung piano wire. "You know what happened. You said I wasn't paying sufficient attention; I told you I was worried about my family; and you showed me what was going on in the infirmary. I don't see how you could go from that to thinking I'd appreciate you adding his face to this argument. I really don't think you've thought it all the way through, because the last thing John would want to do is encourage me to go along with your plan."

Tom had told him about Anne's little theory on why Alexis was showing such obvious effects of her non-human DNA, while the only thing Tom seemed able to do was perceive the Dorniya when no one else could. Looked like the ex and John had something else in common now, whether he liked it or not.

"Really don't think she did," he said, dryly, "considering I'm pretty sure you're the one who dragged me in here. Which is the exact opposite of what I was going for, actually. You were supposed to wake up so you could prove me wrong, not drag me down with you. For a genius, you can really be an idiot sometimes."

Tom's head whipped back around, quickly enough that John was sure he'd have heard vertebrae popping if they'd been in the waking world. "What do you ... John?" he exclaimed, eyes still dark with turbulent emotion.

"Guilty as charged," John shrugged, then glanced toward the alien again, frowning at its still-confused posture. "A little confused here myself, though. I get Lexie still being out, our girl held up half a hallway long enough to keep a bunch of people from getting crushed, but it don't seem like talking in circles really compares to all that heavy lifting. What the hell's the hold up?"

The alien masquerading as Tom's dead wife sighed, then shook her head at them. "We already discussed this, Tom. I don't see how bringing another person into our argument is going to change the fact that the cancer's coming back, or what our options are for dealing with it."

That ... had almost made sense, except for the last bit. "Cancer?" John raised his eyebrows at Tom.

Tom sighed, shaking his head. "Metaphors and resonances, remember? Not long after you left, Cochise called back to say he'd reached his father, and that the greater Volm are detaching a ship to take care of the power plant on the moon within the week. I guess the Dorniya had still been hoping I'd come up to take care of it personally, because — as best I can figure out from the few things she's dared say directly — we're still too strong, and the Espheni leader only exposes itself if it believes they've already conquered a planet, or next best thing to it. If they hang back when the power blows, and I don't go up, the Dorniya have no chance of targeting it with their doomsday weapon until things get a whole lot worse down here — and it has to be the leader, because it's the one in contact with the entirety of the Espheni race, not just the local network."

"Wait, wait. Have they even figured out how not to target the rebels? Or the Skitterized kids?" John shook his head. "I thought you were still arguing the method, not the delivery timing!"

Tom swallowed, looking guilty, and John's vision nearly whited out in fury at what that implied. "Except she can't figure that out, can she? And she still won't let you wake until you come to some kind of agreement, nevermind what you told Porter."

"Not — necessarily agree," Tom said, haltingly. "She just ... wants me to make a decision."

The strain lines around his eyes and mouth deepened further, and John understood instantly. "Yeah, sure. Bet she's been trying to tell you how much it's worth it, though; to save your other kids, and the rest of humanity. What's a few lives in place of thousands, and even more on other planets?"

"But if it only took out the spikes — if it was just me, and the rebel Skitters, who were founded by a Skitterized Dorniyan to begin with, and let's not forget how many humans they killed before that, even Red Eye —"

John could tell — or at least, he hoped — by the pained lines around Tom's eyes and the hesitation in the way he said the words that he wanted John to tell him he was wrong; that billions of lives weren't worth that sacrifice, no matter how much logic told him it was the only responsible way forward. What a change; Tom using John for a substitute conscience, rather than the other way around.

He clapped both hands to the sides of Tom's face, staring him straight in the eye. "Are you insane?"

"Uh — what?" Tom blinked, briefly knocked off his self-martyring track.

Good. John shook his head gently, and repeated himself, willing Tom to hear. "I said, are you insane, Mason?"

Tom blinked again, then seemed to abruptly remember when John had said that to him before, and gave him a faint smile. "If I am, then I guess we'll have that in common," he replied, echoing that day outside the hangar.

"No shit," John replied, dropping his hands to Tom's shoulders and giving a harsh laugh. "The first time you said that to me, we were at probably our lowest point; the day after I tried to run you off into the woods, the day before you tried to kill me over a fucking trinket and I walked rather than admit I'd been in any way wrong. We've both learned a few things since — but that one basic fact hasn't changed. So I don't know why the hell you thought it was a good idea to put that question on my shoulders."

Tom stared at him a moment longer; then his faint smile turned into a low chuckle of his own, and he leaned forward to rest his forehead against John's. "Because you're a selfish son of a bitch, and because you promised to always question my decisions," he said, warmly.

"You're damn right I am," John snorted. "So you know what I'm gonna say. Hell, you told her five minutes ago; the last thing I'll do is encourage you to go along with this suicidal plan of hers. There's got to be some intervening step between full-on martyrdom slash genocide, and leaving the whole damn 'network' in place ..."

He trailed off rather abruptly as that sparked a new chain of thought, reminding him of something else he'd wanted to ask, and he pulled back to stare wide-eyed at Mason. "Network ... why did you use the word network?"

"Because ... it is?" Tom frowned at him. "I get the sense that ... the Espheni are connected to the shadow plane like nodes in a web; the ones in charge hold more and deeper connections than others, but they're all linked together in a greater pattern, with their leader in the center. If we attacked one of the commanders on Earth, we'd only get its immediate peers. Each one can only infect the ones they're connected to directly, and the doomsday infection would burn too shallowly to make the jump off-planet. But if we got the queen ..."

"Queen?" That was the first he'd heard the term.

Tom shook his head, frowning. "I don't know why I said that — I don't know how I know this. Maybe I'm picking it up from her, but ... I just know that's how their species works."

John gnawed his lower lip, the half-formed idea he'd had on the way back from Richmond brewing in his thoughts again. "You know, I knew a guy who knew a guy in prison — hacker type, knew a lot about computer networks. Got caught for some damn fool offline stunt; warden didn't know what he had, and let him at the library computers. He didn't stick around long. Anyway — he told me once, there's two kinds of viruses at heart. Ones that attack across the network — frying computers, cyberlocking 'em, stealing information, whatever. Which sounds a lot like what the Dorniya's trying to do."

He glanced toward the woman in the doorway again — only to find her suddenly standing a lot closer, staring up at him intently with her arms crossed over her chest. "Go on," she said lightly, lifting her eyebrows at him. "It's always interesting, listening to Tom discuss his passions with someone who shares them."

That was ... a slightly surreal comment, considering that the Dorniya apparently liked to stir up old echoes of things Tom's wife had actually said to make its point. Did that mean he was on the right track? He shook that off, disturbed, and continued. "Right. Anyway ... the others attack the network itself. Denial of service, error pages all over, that kind of thing. I was just thinking about something I read in one of those books of yours, the Art of War, about armies needing to hear each other. And it occurred to me ..."

Tom sucked in a sharp breath. "'Because they could not hear each other, they made gongs and drums'," he quoted; "'because they could not see each other they made pennants and flags' ... the shadow plane is the way they communicate. The Espheni don't vocalize; they barely use their radio sense, especially since we started experimenting with jamming them; they don't have any equivalent substitute. It'd destroy their ability to command their mechs and Beamers, their method of controlling the Skitters, the Skitters' ability to enslave our children, anything and everything except their individual muscle power. Which still is considerable, but ..."

"Nothin' compared to what we can do to them in return. And more importantly, won't kill your kid or his friends, just inconvenience 'em for a while," John grinned, then lifted an eyebrow at the Rebecca avatar again. "Fry their ability to connect, but leave 'em alive. Sooner or later they'll have to send more to investigate. If this shit hangs around in their systems like a real virus, and some of those carry it away to report back to this queen…."

Rebecca's eyebrows were halfway up her forehead; she glanced between him and Tom, and then broke into a sudden, brilliant smile. Very briefly, her image flickered, the woman replaced for a second or two by a slimy-looking thing with grey-brown skin, huge eyes, and all too many legs and arms; then the face of Tom's wife was back, and she leaned up to kiss them both on the cheek before speaking directly for the first time since John had joined the conversation. "I did say our child had chosen better than we could have imagined; but even then I had not guessed how much. That would truly be justice: a lonely, lingering and inevitable dwindling into the dark, helpless before everyone they ever harmed." Her voice was fierce as she spoke the last few words.

Then she shook her head and slipped back into Rebecca's phrasing, warmly amused and affectionate toward her husband. "The tide's going out, Tom; but you have a little time. Try not to miss the sunrise tomorrow; it should be spectacular."

Just as she finished speaking, she shot a sideways look at John, and nodded to him; then the room dissolved around him just as quickly as it appeared, dumping him back into reality with no warning.

They hadn't taken him far when he'd passed out, at least; John woke still latched onto Tom's wrist with a white-knuckled grip, sprawled beside him on the thin mattress of a gurney. The straps had been removed; apparently, John joining him had had the same effect. There was a joke to be made there, but he was too fried to work out the details.

"Man. Anyone get the number of the bus that hit me?" he groaned, rubbing at his eyes with his free hand.

"Sorry about that," a much rougher voice replied; then the wrist he was holding onto turned in his grasp until callused fingers threaded through his. "Didn't know I could do that."

"King of chaos," John reminded him with a snort, locking gazes with the man in the next bed.

"Guilty as charged," Tom replied, eyes twinkling as his mouth curved in a smile.

"Pope? Dad?" a voice from the hallway broke in on the moment, and they both turned to look into the very relieved face of Ben Mason. "GUYS! They're awake!"

"Ben! No yelling in my infirmary; your family aren't the only ones in here!" another voice called back; Anne, the sound of whose hurried footsteps approaching belied her scolding, low-voiced words.

John chuckled and sat up slowly, keeping hold of Tom's hand. "Hey, simmer down, kid; my head hurts. Seems your dad's not content with having Storm slash Jean Grey for a daughter, and — whatever Spiderman/ Wolverine graft you're supposed to be for a son. He's decided to go all Charles Xavier on us; it's turning into a whole mutant convention in here."

"'Decided' implies I had a choice in the matter," Tom said dryly, slowly levering himself to a seated position beside John, squinting at his middle son. "Hey — how'd the battle go? The one here, I mean. I'm guessing Richmond went okay, since you're both in one piece?"

"The battle here went fine. A little damage, but nothin' that can't be repaired," the gruff voice of Dan Weaver answered from the other side of the room; he was still in the same seat he'd been in before. "We were a little more worried about you. What the hell happened to you, Tom?"

"The Dorniya," Tom said, shaking his head, then squeezed John's hand. "She contacted me, like I thought she might, but we had a pretty fundamental difference of opinion on what to needs to happen next. John broke the stalemate, though. Dan — I think we've come up with an idea that might actually win us this war."

"What sort of idea?" Anne asked, crowding into the small space with Tanya right behind her, and the other three — Hal, Maggie, and Matt — squeezing in around them.

"We'll have to test it to make sure, but — they said they'll give us a weapon that will cut off the Espheni's ability to communicate with each other. They won't be able to coordinate attacks, or impose their will on any Skitters, or give orders to their mechs ..."

"In short, they're gonna be the caveman in our caveman versus the astronaut argument, for a change," John said, rubbing at a throbbing temple with his free hand. It sure felt like there were cavemen battling inside his skull; he hadn't had a headache that bad since the time he'd been interrogated by Karen when he was on his own between Richmond and the hospital in Waverly. Hopefully, neither head-trip had done him and his all-human DNA any permanent damage.

"You came up with this idea?" Maggie replied skeptically, then turned to Tom. "Are you sure you weren't just hallucinating his involvement? You were out for a really long time, you know."

"Hey!" Tanya objected, turning to her indignantly, jabbing her shoulder with one petite hand. "That's my dad you're talking about!"

"Girls, girls ..." John started to object, then laughed at the ridiculousness of the situation. Step-sisters-in-law squabbling over the parents, sort of, almost; a potent reminder that his choice wasn't just loading him down with a bunch of awkward new step-relatives. He was sharing them with Tanya, too.

"Uncle John?" the youngest daughter-figure of the Mason pack asked, voice breaking on a yawn. "Are you okay?"

John glanced over to see Lexie rubbing sleep out of her eyes; the white streak in her hair was much thicker now, but the soft affection and worry in her face was still one hundred percent Mason. Accept no substitutes, dilutions, or corruptions: they'd proven the hard way that the Mason brand always shone through.

"Yeah, sweetheart, I'm fine," he beamed at her across the room. "Your sisters are just being ridiculous." Then he turned that irrepressible smile on someone much closer by. Maybe he was letting the atmosphere go to his head again, the way he had at that party right after they took Jacksonville; maybe he'd have second thoughts again later; but maybe he didn't give a damn anymore.

"Hey, Mason," he said, clearing his throat.

"Yeah, Pope?" Tom cocked an expectant eyebrow at him.

John traced his eyes all over the familiar features, again; the stress lines and laugh lines, the grey threads working their way into his dark hair and closely trimmed beard, the light in his eyes as he looked at John. All those years of struggling for respect, spitting in the face of anyone who wouldn't give it, and all it had taken to sate that starving hunger was that look on the face of a man who'd once been his nemesis. He'd have to be a fool to piss all that away over a few qualms about what might or might not happen if the shine ever wore off.

If their story had been a romance flick, this would have been the moment when he got all teary-eyed and asked his lover to marry him, like any good reformed bad boy with a heart of gold. But even laying aside the fact that while they might be from Massachusetts, they were living in South Carolina, not one of the states that had legalized gay marriage before the aliens' arrival, and Tom had just spent most of a year making a big deal about upholding the old laws wherever possible until they could be changed by legal process — apocalyptic dramas played by different rules. If he begged fate that way he'd doom himself to going out in a blaze of glory, and it'd be a tossup whether the history books would record him as the tragically heroic First Husband, or the ungovernable ex-con with a bad track record who didn't deserve any tears their perfect President might shed.

Let Hal be the one to bend the knee for Mags on the eve of eternity; he'd seen the kid sneak into a wrecked pawn shop during their scouting trip, and come out pocketing a box too small to hold a gun. John had a different sort of affirmation to offer.

"When I said 'whither thou goest', I really wasn't anticipating a trip into the ol' grey matter. Keep me out of it next time, would you? I'm not in that big a hurry to get to the 'aught but death' part, and my head is killing me."

The corners of Tom's eyes crinkled more deeply; message received. "Well, we can't have that, can we," he replied, dryly. "Shall I kiss it and make it better?"

Ben made a gagging noise, shattering the moment with the force of his teenage indignation. "You're flirting again? Now? Is this really the time?"

John cast a sardonic eye at him. "Know a better time for it than right after you both thought you were gonna die, and right before you go out to do it all over again? No? Didn't think so."

"He does have a point, though. I did promise to report as soon as I knew more about what the Dorniya wanted," Tom sighed regretfully, then began the slow progress of untangling himself from John's grip, the sheets, and the monitors hooked up to him. "Dan, if you'll gather the usual suspects in my office?"

"You sure? You been down for a half a day, at least," Weaver replied, getting up out of his chair.

"No time like the present," Tom rasped. "Although — you look as wrung out as I feel. Something happen to you, too?"

"Don't worry about me. I'm fine," Weaver tried to wave that away.

Of course, that was a stupid thing to do in the infirmary with Anne standing right there. "No, you're not," she said, with a stern, fond expression, laying a hand on the colonel's arm. "I won't stop either of you from walking to Tom's office, because I know how important this is, but I'll send Lourdes to Marina to do the gathering. You don't need to be running around and straining yourself just yet."

"Is that your professional, medical opinion, Doctor?" Weaver scowled at her.

"Considering it's only been a year and a half or so since your entire cardiovascular system was under attack by an alien parasite, and it's becoming pretty obvious that there was some collateral damage? Yes," she replied, sternly. "Now sit back down; and if you're still standing when I come back in here, my second request will be accompanied by a sedative."

"Yes, ma'am," Weaver sighed, and sank back down. John saw the quickly hidden relief in his expression, though, and was pretty sure Anne had made the right call.

"Anyone else have something urgent to say?" Tom said, looking around at the others with a pointed eyebrow.

The frozen tableau in the room fell apart at that question, as the others all ducked in for a hug and a quick avowal that they were all OK. John sighed, then turned and slid off the gurney, ducking to retrieve their rifles from where someone with some brains had stashed them under Tom's bed. Then he sidled over to stand by Lexie's bed and wait out all the base-touching, comfort-seeking, relief-expressing emoting going on.

The girl herself had almost drifted back under after her brief greeting, but she opened her eyes again on a yawn when John glanced down at her. "I did it, Uncle John," she said quietly, almost glowing with self-confidence. A better contrast to the day after her dad's kidnapping, he couldn't have wished for.

"I heard, yeah. That practice paying off already, huh?" He patted her hand.

"They're still afraid," she nodded slowly on her pillow. "But some of them are glad, too. It feels really nice."

"It does indeed," he replied, as her eyelids drooped shut again. Out of the mouths of babes. "It does indeed."

The second debriefing on the matter of the Dorniya was quite a bit shorter than the first had been. It didn't take Tom long to summarize the new developments, and what it would mean in context with the success of Cochise's request for help from his father.

"We'll test it on a regular Skitter first; provided that goes well, all we'll have to do is be in place outside Greensboro or one of the other Espheni strongholds, maybe the nearest school, when the Volm arrive and the power plant goes down. Jab the Overlord with it — and they'll lose both their tech and their connection to each other all at once. This war will go from an uphill struggle against a better armed and more numerous foe, to an extermination mission almost overnight," he concluded, voice almost throbbing with intensity and conviction.

The VP replied first; she was usually the voice of caution, but her expression was fraught with hope. "And if the test doesn't work? If these Dorniya are misleading us?" she asked, clenching her hands together.

"Then the power plant still goes down, and we still have a better chance than we do now. And before you ask, if the Volm let us down, too — Dr. Kadar tells me we have a Beamer mostly patched back together, and plenty of rebel Skitters willing to assist us in taking the moonbase down ourselves. And if that falls through, we just keep doing what we've been doing all along while we think up something new. There's no real downside, here."

Peralta pressed her lips together, then glanced beseechingly at the general.

General Porter sighed, then nodded. "I'll support this, with a few conditions. You're not going to the beach alone tomorrow; even if you trust the Dorniya, you said they were worried about being overheard, so that point's non-negotiable. And I don't think you should be on the mission to deliver the weapon either, if it comes to that."

"Way ahead of you there," John spoke up. "I'm going with him in the morning — the Dorniya shouldn't object to that, since it met me today — and we'll have the Berserkers and Hal's crew all staking out the approaches. As for Greensboro — I'd suggest sending Captain Marshall's crew again with some of the First Continental. Marshall's gonna be keen for a win after what happened to Hathaway, and the Second Mass could sure use the break."

"Amen to that," Maggie muttered.

Weaver glanced at her, then around at all the rest of them, and finally nodded. "I don't like it; but Tom's right, there's not much of a downside if we take a few precautions. One thing you haven't mentioned, though. Any indication what the Dorniya plan to do if we do take down the Espheni?"

Tom shrugged expansively. "The one I've spoken to hasn't said much; they seem to have lived mostly for revenge since their planet was conquered. Help us, I would hope; they obviously have some pretty advanced technology, and we're going to need some kind of boost to get the world back on its feet before any hope of maintaining at least some of our pre-war cultures collapses entirely. If that does happen, I'll probably resign; we'll need to hold an election, but I get that you're worried about her having constant access to the President's mind, and I agree. I'm sure I'll find some way to continue contributing, though."

"Oh, no doubt," Weaver said dryly. "Professor Emeritus at some new United Nations University, or something?"

"Oh, I'd hope for something a little more hands-on than that," Tom snorted — then threw a sidewise glance at John, as if to include him in the joke.

"If you didn't, I'd drag you to Dr. Glass to have your head examined," John grinned back. "Again."

Half the table laughed in agreement, folding John in as if his voice actually held equal weight in their council.

The day after the world ended, there'd only been one thing John had wanted: revenge. At the time, he'd thought that meant killing every single Skitter he came across.

But that wasn't true, was it? There was a saying that living well was the best revenge ... and in that moment, he was finally ready to believe that it might be the truth.

Sometime later that evening, once the last of the day's business was done, Tom led the way back to the infirmary to check in with their kids before setting the alarm for dawn and laying down to try and get some rest. Matt and Tanya had voiced the intention to finish off Watership Down with Lexie, and it had sounded like the others intended to hang out there to keep them company, an informal family night before whatever might come next.

They heard Tanya's clear voice rising and falling as they entered the old store, and followed it back to Alexis' cubicle. The rest of the infirmary's residents had fallen quiet, listening; John followed Tom in equal silence, the two of them placing their feet as carefully on the tile as if scouting in the woods. A glimpse through the doorway showed Hal and Maggie seated on Tom's old bed, their hands linked, and a spark of light winking from one of Maggie's fingers; Ben and Denny seated cross-legged on a cabinet; Matt at the foot of Alexis' bed; Lourdes seated next to Lexie, running a brush through her hair; and Tanya holding forth to all of them from the middle of the room, turning the last pages in the worn old paperback.

Tom smiled at the scene, a soft light in his eyes as he stared at their collective and adjacent offspring, then backed quietly away. "I just wanted to see them — I don't want to interrupt."

"They're a pretty good group of kids," John murmured. "No matter what happens next, they've got the stuff to get through it."

"Think so, huh?" Tom turned that luminous smile at him.

"'Course. Add Jeanne and her boy and you've got all the next generation of Clan Mason in there. Even if we fell off the face of the planet tomorrow, the Espheni wouldn't stand a chance."

"Then let's make sure they don't have to," Tom said, and reached out, hooking John by a belt loop to pull him in close.

John's pulse rushed loudly in his ears, almost drowning out his daughter's reading as they threw themselves into that kiss. Making all the promises John wouldn't speak aloud, conveying Tom's answers without making hostages of them to fate.

"Bed?" he said hoarsely after a long minute, flushed from head to toe with yearning.

Whatever happened the next day ... for once in his life, John Pope was at peace.

Behind them, Tanya's voice rose as she read the last few sentences.

(as to the east, a strange spaceship all spherical shapes and grey-on-white tones dipped under low cloud cover toward the ocean, a glowing cylinder full of engineered pathogen waiting for delivery in its hold)

(as to the west — galactically speaking — a Volm warship veered from the defense of their people's home fleet, one more link in a chain of very strange events connecting them to a world that should have been nothing but yet another backwater in this war)

"The wind freshened, and soon myriads of dry beech leaves were filling the ditches and hollows and blowing in gusts across the dark miles of open grass.

"Underground, the story continued."

-(END)-