Part One

HOTEL MERIDA, GUADALAJARA, MEXICO

AUGUST 27th, 7:39 pm

Stretching out in the massive bathtub, Domino sighed contentedly. This was nice--very nice. Too bad the Pack couldn't stay in five-star hotels on a regular basis. Still, Bridge, paranoid as he was, had a point. Someplace like this was too--visible for people in their line of work. It was common sense, she corrected herself sternly, not paranoia; Logan had said pretty much the same thing to her, more times than she could remember. But, thankfully, there were times that discretion wasn't absolutely essential--like now, when the Pack was between missions and in dire need of a breather, if not a full-fledged vacation.

Closing her eyes, she laid there in the steaming water, letting it soak away the aches and stiffness from last night's 'excitement'. She'd gotten off lightly, with only a few bruises--of course, she hadn't been in the thick of the fighting. The others were nursing various minor injuries. Nothing serious, but considering how totally they had been taken by surprise, it could have been worse, so much worse. She felt her muscles tense in anger at the memory, and forced herself to relax. It had been a close call, but it was over. No point in 'stewing' about it, as Logan would have put it.

Once the water had cooled, she got out, wrapping a large towel around herself. As she headed back into the bedroom to get ready for her dinner date, she toyed with the idea of giving Logan a call. She needed to vent to someone, and he was a good listener. Besides, she didn't think that his personal differences with Cable would prevent him from being just as indignant as she was over how the Pack had been used. There were certain rules to the game, after all, and their employer had just violated one of the most basic. The thought of how Logan would have dealt with that little weasel Sykes succeeded in bringing a brief, grim smile to her face.

By the time the expected knock finally came at her door, she was fully dressed and just pulling her damp hair back into a braid. "That you, Theo?" she called, her eyes flickering from the door to the gun she'd laid on the dresser, thoughtfully measuring distances--just in case.

"Yeah," Grizzly rumbled from the other side of the door. "It's me," he added, somewhat unnecessarily.

"Well, c'mon in, then!" she said with a laugh. The door opened partway and Grizzly stuck his head in, looking a touch apprehensive. Domino chuckled. "Don't worry, big guy," she reassured him. "I'm decent."

His expression brightened as he stepped in and got a good look at her. "Wow, Dom!" he said with an almost boyish enthusiasm. "You look like a girl!"

She arched an eyebrow. "Was that supposed to be a compliment?" she asked wryly. "I certainly didn't dress up for you, pal." She hadn't brought much in the way of civilian clothes with her on this trip, but while she'd been out this afternoon, trying to blow off steam, she'd seen the red dress she was wearing in a shop window and been unable to resist. Admittedly, it was cut a little low, but so what? She felt like she lived in her body armor these days, with the amount of time they spent in the field. It was refreshing to wear something that made her look like a woman, for once. Hammer might make one of his patented sexist comments if she ran into him tonight, but she'd gotten used to them over the four months she'd been with the Pack. Screw him, anyway-- It was just his charming way of testing her, she knew--annoying, but easily handled.

Cable and Bridge, on the other hand, made her uneasy. They were taking her measure too, in more subtle ways. Bridge had this habit of striking up 'discussions' on various topics--sounding her out, she thought. And Cable watched her. Constantly. If he wasn't quite so cold about it, it would be a little creepy. At least Grizzly had never been anything but friendly. She was really getting to be quite fond of the big guy, actually.

"Umm--I didn't mean--you look nice, Dom," Grizz finally said, looking chagrined. Taking pity on him, she grinned and patted his cheek.

"That's better. So do you, by the way," she said quite sincerely. "Though I don't want to know what you had to go through to get a suit that fit you--"

Laughing, he offered her his arm. She gave him a sarcastic little half-curtsy, and, together, they headed down to the restaurant on the ground floor of the hotel. On the way, they were the object of more than a few surreptitiously curious looks from other guests. Reminding herself that this was a tourist hotel and that the two of them stood out rather markedly (to put it mildly), Domino smiled pleasantly at each person they passed, mostly to counteract Grizzly's glower. The elevator they stepped into had two other passengers, both elderly women who stared at Grizzly in obvious terror all the way down to ground level. Taking pity on them, Domino attempted to strike up a conversation about the weather, but they didn't respond. Eventually, rather irritated by the whole thing, she gave up on trying to soothe them. Grizzly certainly wasn't helping any.

"Quit swearing under your breath," she muttered as the elevator doors opened onto the lobby and the two old ladies beat a hasty retreat.

"I don't like being stared at," Grizzly said, sounding grouchy. "What did they think I was going to do to them? Eat them?"

"Probably," she said with a straight face, and he cracked a reluctant grin as they stepped out into the lobby.

"Not enough meat on their bones," he rumbled.

"And too well-aged," she joked. "You only eat babies, right?"

His booming laugh echoed loudly in the lobby, and Domino grinned, satisfied that she'd teased him out of his brief bad mood. "Eat--babies," he wheezed, struggling to get control of himself as they walked across to the restaurant. "Oh--that's good. Nice to have someone with a sense of humor around."

"Tell me about it," she said slyly. "This is an awfully grim bunch we've thrown in with, big guy."

"Yeah, well. Wait 'til G.W. plays his first practical joke on you."

"Should I be afraid?" she asked in an innocent voice, and his grin grew wider. Quite honestly, she hadn't pictured Bridge as the practical joker type. But then again, it's always the ones you don't expect, she thought, amused. She wasn't particularly worried. If he started a practical joke 'war', she'd win, after all.

"Oh, yeah," Grizzly chuckled, opening the door for her. "You wouldn't think it to look at him, I know, but he's downright evil, Dom."

"I can hardly wait," she said with a grin, and went through the door.

Inside, the restaurant was cool, attractively decorated, and softly lit. Quite nice, Domino thought appreciatively--and then froze in her tracks, just inside the door. Grizzly nearly ran over her, but his surprised grumble turned into an incredulous curse as he followed the direction of her gaze and saw what had caught her attention.

Domino's first inclination was to express herself in a similar fashion, but most of her brain was busy simply trying to process the scene in front of her. When she'd called down to the front desk earlier, the clerk had made a reservation for them, even though he'd assured her that there would be plenty of tables, the hotel being only half-full at this time of year. That in mind, she hadn't expected a crowd, but she hadn't expected the place to be all but empty, either. And the reason why was abundantly clear.

Sitting at the bar, two empty bottles of tequila in a neat row beside him, was Cable.

And he was singing.

"You're old enough to kill, but not for voting--"

Dear God, his voice was terrible, Domino thought, half-amused, half-alarmed.

"You don't believe in war, then what's that gun you're toting?"

"Oh, shit!" Grizzly muttered beside her, aghast. "Tell me I'm not seeing this!"

"When even the Jordan River has bodies floating? But you tell me, over and over and over again my friend, you don't believe, we're on the eve of destruction!" Cable coughed, and finished off bottle number three in one swallow. "I like that song," he confided in the bartender in a voice that was remarkably clear, considering the amount of alcohol he'd clearly consumed. "I don't know why, I just like it. Don't you like that song?"

The bartender looked like he was about to wet his pants. "Um--it's a very nice song, sir," he said in a strangled voice.

"Glad you think so. I hate people with no taste in music." Cable set the bottle down beside the others, arranging them meticulously, and then looked back at the bartender. "You know, that one tasted better than the last one. I think I'll have another."

"You're seeing it, Grizz," Domino told her stunned companion, unable to keep the amusement out of her voice. Looking up at him, she raised an eyebrow at the expression of near-panic he wore. Isn't he overreacting just a bit? "You know, Theo," she said conversationally, "I'm pretty sure I remember G.W. telling me that Nate doesn't drink." She'd noticed it herself, even in such a short time with the Pack. Just last month, when they'd completed that job in Bulgaria and gotten a hefty bonus to go along with their usual fee, they'd settled down to do some serious celebrating one night. Hammer and Bridge and Grizzly had all gotten stinking drunk--with her higher tolerance for alcohol, she'd been just sober enough to laugh at them.

But Cable had just sat there in the corner of the bar, all night long, sipping water and watching them. He hadn't said ten words all night. The next day, a very hung-over Hammer had made some nasty comments about Cable's standoffishness--that hadn't been the word he'd used, of course, Domino thought sourly--but Grizz and Bridge had seemed to take it as a matter of course.

"He doesn't drink!" Grizzly said in a voice just as strangled as the bartender's. "He NEVER drinks!"

"Well, he certainly is throwing himself into it wholeheartedly tonight." Domino looked back at Cable, and couldn't help a laugh. "And doing a pretty good job of it too. I think I'm impressed." Even Logan, with his healing factor, would be a little wobbly after three bottles of tequila. But Nate hardly even looked tipsy. Except for the singing, of course.

Grizzly gulped, and then seemed to come to some kind of decision. "Okay," he said, his voice breaking a bit despite his obvious attempt to sound determined. "I'll go get G.W. You stay here--and don't let him kill anyone!"

Before Domino could say a word, he was almost sprinting across the lobby, headed for the elevator. "Right," she muttered, turning and regarding Cable again. "I seriously hope that was a joke, big guy."

A large, burly bouncer-type emerged from a door marked 'Employees Only' and gave Cable a wary look. Domino decided it was probably time to step in. "Hey, Nate," she said amiably, walking up to the bar and sitting down beside him. The bouncer started towards them, and she gave him a 'let-me-handle-it' look. He backed off, and she nodded to herself in satisfaction, turning her attention back to Cable. The last thing they needed was a dead bouncer. "What're you doing?" she asked lightly.

He snorted. "And here I thought you were observant," he said almost disgustedly. "It should be perfectly obvious that I'm getting drunk." He leaned forward, glaring down at the bartender, who had retreated to the opposite end of the bar. "I said I wanted another!"

Domino gave the bartender a reassuring smile. "With two glasses," she added. He nodded jerkily, obeying. Cable's head whipped around and he gave her a thunderous look.

"I don't remember inviting you!" he growled. "Why do you always have to do this--push your way into situations where you don't belong--"

Domino raised an eyebrow, but continued to smile. "Since you're new at this," she said placatingly, "I'll let you in on a little secret. Drinking alone is not a good thing." The bartender brought them the bottle and glasses. Domino took the bottle before Cable could, and poured for them both. "Otherwise, you just end up brooding, and you sure as hell don't need to do any more of that, Nate."

He snatched the glass she offered him, and continued to glower at her. "Go away," he muttered.

"Not just yet," she said calmly, studying him intently. Grizzly had been right to be concerned, she decided. There was something wrong here. She could see it in his eyes, in the way he held himself, and something told her that it wasn't just the amount of tequila he'd clearly put away already. That was a reaction; a symptom, for lack of a better word. She suspected that she already knew what was at the root of it. What, but not really why-- "I'm not going anywhere. Not until I know you're all right."

He downed what was in his glass almost defiantly, and slammed it down on the bar so hard that she winced, surprised it hadn't broken. "Oh, I'm fine," he growled. "Better than fine. Just fruity."

It took every bit of self-control she had not to laugh in his face. "I think you meant peachy, Nate," she said delicately. "Not fruity."

"I said fruity and I meant fruity!" he shouted, flushing.

"Well, that would explain you and Bridge--" Domino quipped, before she could help herself. Oh, damn, tell me I didn't just say that--shit, I did--

Cable gave her a thoroughly evil look. "Let me guess," he said, very precisely. "Fruity has some com-connotation I'm not aware of."

"You could say that, yes--" she managed, trying very hard not to laugh.

He muttered something that could have been a curse. "Don't patronize me, Dom," he finally snarled.

"I wasn't patronizing you," she said soothingly. "I'm just worried, that's all."

"I'm touched," he muttered, eyeing her suspiciously. Domino gave an exasperated sigh, but told herself to keep calm. The last thing she wanted to do was provoke him. Cable could do a startling amount of property damage when he was only mildly irritated. She didn't want to find out what he was capable of if he was really pissed off.

"Look at it from my perspective," she said patiently. "One of the first things Bridge ever told me about you was that you didn't drink, for whatever reason. But yet here you are, getting smashed. Aren't I allowed to be a tiny bit concerned?"

"Getting smashed?" he asked somewhat vaguely, the anger fading from his face for a moment. "I thought I was getting drunk."

Domino opened her mouth to point out that it meant the same thing, but stopped herself, shaking her head ruefully. "Never mind. I'm just wondering why you're doing this, Nathan--what's wrong?" His eyes narrowed, the left glowing a baleful gold, and she sighed again. "Right. Stupid question."

***

79 MILES NORTH OF ZACATECAS, MEXICO

AUGUST 26th, 11:02 pm

"Three, you read me?"

"Roger, Two," Domino answered, wincing at the static that accompanied Grizzly's voice over her headset. Beside her, the driver gave her a questioning look. She bared her teeth at him, and he hurriedly turned his attention back to the excuse for a road they were on. Domino smirked. "All clear out there?" she asked Grizzly.

"Yep." Grizz sounded bored; Domino couldn't blame him. "Nothing but dirt, rocks, and one heckuva moon."

Domino leaned forward, peering out at the perfect full moon hanging in the cloudless sky. "Pretty," she commented idly. She hadn't noticed the moon back in Zacatecas. "We're almost to the mine, Two. You figure the bad guys took the night off?"

"Hope not, Three. I'm in the mood to break some heads."

"You're always in the mood to break some heads, Two," she said wryly.

"Personality flaw," Grizzly said laconically.

"Two, Three, would you quit the skipchatter?" Hammer said irritably. "Some of us are trying to work here!" He was set up with some alarmingly sophisticated-looking equipment in one of the trucks behind her, scanning for any movement out there. She didn't know whether the scanners looked for heat signatures, bio-signs, or something else entirely--and she hadn't been about to ask. Hammer would just have rattled off some technical explanation that would have sounded like perfect bullshit to her, and Cable, who'd provided the equipment in the first place, would probably have given her that stone-faced expression and pretended he hadn't heard the question. He tended to do that a lot.

"You're breaking my heart, Four," Domino muttered.

"Girl, get that tiny mind of yours back on business, will you?" Hammer said acidly.

"I think you should all shut up." Cable's whisper was emotionless, but Domino instantly swallowed the retort she'd been about to make.

"Copy, One," she said grudgingly. Hammer didn't deign to respond. Domino lifted her night-glasses, scanning the area off to the east. Cable was out there somewhere, shadowing the supply convoy, just as Grizzly was doing on the west, while G.W. and a bunch of Petrosian Mining and Exploration's own security people (she didn't envy him, saddled with that bunch of incompetents) took point and she and Hammer rode back here with the trucks.

They hadn't seen hide nor hair of the 'brigands' (to use the P.M.E. rep's word for them) who'd been making a bad habit of blowing up equipment and attacking convoys like this one. The attacks had been successful enough that production at P.M.E.'s brand new silver mine was months behind schedule. So, the company had come to the Pack--or to Hammer, rather, Domino corrected herself meticulously. Which made this whole thing a little irregular from the get-go. Cable and Bridge negotiated the Pack's contracts. Anyone who knew enough to come to the Pack should know that. But it was Hammer that Sykes, the P.M.E. representative, had approached--and why does that make me feel so uneasy? she wondered darkly. She didn't believe in premonitions--

"One, I'm reading movement on your twelve'o'clock," Hammer suddenly said, his voice sharp.

"Copy," Cable answered. "I've got visual contact. Seven--no, eight of them, moving towards the road. Heads up, Five."

"Copy," Bridge said. "Two, anything on your side?"

"Negative, Five."

"One, I'm getting some pretty funky energy readings--assume they're packing heavy weapons."

"Watch yourself, One," Domino said, unable to help herself. C'mon, Cable, no cowboy shit, she thought anxiously. Let Bridge spring his trap-- Lack of solid intelligence was what had made her so nervous about this job. They knew next to nothing about who'd they'd be facing, how many or how good they were. During the previous attacks, P.M.E.'s own security guards had been too busy screwing up to note information like that. Still, if there were only eight of them--

"There's something wrong," Cable said, and Domino frowned, hearing something odd in his voice--bafflement? "Five, wait, don't--"

There was the sound of an explosion over the com-channel, followed by a burst of static.

"Nate!" G.W. shouted. Domino cursed, and gave the driver a single, blazing look.

"Keep going!" she snarled, throwing open the passenger door and jumping out. She landed rather heavily on her right shoulder, but rolled and came back to her feet, flipping the safety off her gun. "Hammer! Give me a location on Cable!"

Hammer started to rattle off directions and distances, but was cut off by another thunderous explosion, this time somewhere near the front of the convoy. The trucks came to a screeching halt, several of them colliding.

"Shit!" Bridge snarled. "The bastards mined the road!" Gunfire erupted near the site of the second explosion. "Two, get your ass down here!"

Now there was gunfire from the rear of the convoy, too. Their 'rearguard' was made up of the better element of P.M.E.'s own security force, helped along by a couple weeks of training from Bridge. But from the sounds of it, there were a lot more than eight hostiles out there. For a minute, Domino froze, not sure what she should be doing. Then instinct kicked in.

"Hammer! Where is he?" she snarled.

"About five hundred yards away on your four'o'clock!" Hammer said rapidly. "Five, where do you want me?"

Domino could still hear Bridge cursing. "Get to the rear, Ham, make sure those idiots don't shoot themselves in the foot--"

Gritting her teeth, Domino headed as quickly as she could in the direction Hammer had indicated, hoping she didn't run into any hostiles along the way. Or fall and break her neck--this was pretty rough terrain.

She found Cable in a few minutes. He was sprawled on the ground, already struggling to get up.

"Nate!" she snapped, going to her knees beside him. "Damn it, don't move!"

"Mine," he muttered dazedly, blinking up at her. "Caught it--but the feedback--"

"A mine?" she asked incredulously. "But--" He wasn't even scratched! He did look a little on the concussed side, though. "Just--take it easy," she said rather lamely.

He squinted at her, as if trying to focus. Then, even in the moonlight, she saw the color drain from his face. She instinctively reached out to support him, but that look of shock was gone in an instant, replaced by a terrible urgency she'd never seen in his expression before. Before she could say a word, he was on his feet like a shot, breaking into a stumbling run back towards the road, where she could still clearly hear the sounds of a firefight.

"Cable--hey!" She went after him, but he was already snarling orders over his communicator.

"Bridge, cease fire! Stop shooting, stab your eyes!" The gunfire continued, and Cable stopped dead in his tracks, cursing in some language she didn't know.

Domino would never be sure quite what happened next. She was hit by a wave of dizziness, she seemed to hear someone shouting at her, and, the next thing she knew, she was fighting the urge to throw her gun to the ground, as if it had suddenly become something so distasteful that she couldn't bear to touch it.

Blinking, she shook her head to clear it, and the impulse faded. "Cable? What the hell--"

The gunfire had stopped.

Cable stood there, swaying on his feet for a moment, but then shook himself and kept going down towards the road. Domino followed, too bewildered to protest, and they reached G.W.'s position quickly.

The lead truck was still burning merrily away, and there were a number of bodies lying around, most in the uniform of P.M.E. security, but quite a few others, as well. *The enemy?* Domino thought dully, noticing how cobbled-together their gear looked--how young some of them were.

Bridge and Grizzly looked intact, more or less. She heard Hammer saying something over her headset, but tuned him out. She watched as Bridge came forward to meet Cable, limping heavily and looking utterly perplexed.

"Nate? What the hell's going on--"

Cable gave him a look that Domino could only have described as tormented, and then turned away, scanning their surroundings. "Ramirez!" he shouted, and G.W. suddenly swayed, as if someone had hit him. "Ramirez, it's Cable!"

There was no answer for a moment, and then a tall man in black limped from cover. Handsome, maybe Bridge and Cable's age, he was totally unfamiliar to Domino, but he certainly seemed to know her teammates. The look on his face, in the light from the burning truck, was an odd mixture of shock and ironic resignation.

"Nathan?" he said, shaking his head with a weak, humorless laugh. "Madre de Dios--we knew Petrosian had hired professionals, but the Pack?"

"Oh, shit," G.W. whispered, slumping to his knees. "Shit, what a fucking mess."

"I'd say that just about covers it," Cable said in a low, emotionless voice. But his left eye was blazing bright gold, almost spitting sparks, and he was trembling slightly. Not from shock, Domino realized as she saw his expression, but from rage. Pure, murderous rage like nothing she'd ever seen from him before. And it wasn't directed at this Ramirez, either.

Ramirez studied Cable for a moment, and then gave another of those weak laughs. Domino noticed that he had his hands clasped tightly to his side, blood seeping around his fingers. "Ah," he said. "You're beginning to see, now--"

"See what?" Domino demanded, and Cable cursed bitterly.

"That we just got duped," he snarled. "By our employers."

"Hey," Ramirez said with a cough. "Happens to the best of us, amigo."

***

HOTEL MERIDA

7:55 pm

"You couldn't have known," Domino said quietly.

"Oh, no?" he asked, his shoulders shaking with silent laughter. "You'd be surprised, Dom." His hand tightened spasmodically around his glass. "I should have known," he grated, his left eye glowing fiercely again. "Stupid, careless--why didn't I SEE?"

Domino scowled. "Maybe because you're not omniscient? It wouldn't kill you to ease up on yourself, you know."

He took the bottle away from her. "It wouldn't kill ME, no," he said bitterly.

"Of all the--where's this fucking God complex coming from, Nate?" she demanded. "Just who the hell do you think you are?"

He snorted. "One of these days I'm going to give you an answer to that question," he said almost wearily. "I wouldn't look forward to it, if I were you."

"I see getting drunk hasn't cured you of those nasty little cryptic tendencies of yours," Domino said a little snidely.

"Why is everyone always--" He stopped for a moment and then gave her a very evil look. "Maybe I do it just to be irritating." He downed the rest of the contents of his glass in one gulp and then muttered something under his breath.

"I wouldn't put it past you," she said acidly, sipping from her own glass.

"Or maybe I have a reason, did you ever think of that?" he snarled, his eyes narrowing. "But no, you've always been too busy indulging your rampaging curiosity to think of that. I'm not a flonqing puzzle, girl. You can't solve me."

Domino tilted her head, regarding him with a sudden smile. "That sounds like a challenge, old man."

"Oath! You take everything as a challenge!"

"So?"

"So--stop it!" he almost sputtered. "Do you have any idea how irritating that is?" She raised an eyebrow, and he flushed. "Don't EVEN say it," he growled warningly, and she raised a defensive hand. He leaned back against the bar, watching her closely. He looked angry, but there was a strange tightness around his eyes, almost of pain. Her own irritation with him faded immediately.

"Nate," she said gently, reaching out and putting a hand on his knee. He gave it a suspicious look. "'Gentlemen's agreement' or not, the Pack and the Harriers were bound to end up on opposite sides of a job one of these days. Part of the risks of the business." Grizzly had told her the whole story on the way back to Guadalajara. Ramirez was ex-SHIELD, just like Bridge and Cable, and an old friend. The two groups had fought beside each other on more than one occasion, and always refused any job that would bring them into direct conflict with each other. Cable and Bridge would have turned P.M.E. down flat if they'd known all the facts--and not just because of the Harriers, either, Domino reflected grimly.

"Not like this," Cable said harshly, and Domino nodded wearily.

"No, not like this. You're right." Part of her just didn't want to deal with the whole picture, the truth behind this contract and how badly the Pack had been used. Okay, so maybe I do understand why he's getting drunk. "You and Bridge checked everything out, right?" she asked helplessly.

"Triple-checked everything, considering that it was Hammer who arranged the contract." Cable lifted his glass with exaggerated care, and gave her a conspiratorial look. "I don't trust him, you know."

"Really," she murmured. "I'd never have guessed."

"Of course," he said, making a careless gesture with the hand holding the glass and giving the bartender a tequila shower, "he doesn't trust me, either. So we're even. That's good, isn't it?"

"Always good to be even," she agreed, regarding him from over the rim of her glass. "Even better to get even, though--" She knew that he knew she wasn't talking about Hammer, this time.

"Oath, Dom, if you have something to say, say it! Don't beat around the hedge!"

She'd been taking a sip at the moment he said it, and the tequila most definitely went down the wrong way. He raised an eyebrow. "I thought you were supposed to drink it, Dom. Not inhale it."

Once she could breathe again, she gave him an evil look. "Funny man," she growled hoarsely. "I had no intention of beating around the--um, hedge, Nate. All I was going to say was that I would quite cheerfully have killed Sykes myself, and I'm surprised you let Bridge stop you."

"Not good business, to kill your employers," Cable muttered, but the look on his face told Domino quite clearly that he was already regretting that he hadn't.

Part Two

GUADALAJARA OFFICE OF PETROSIAN MINING AND EXPLORATION

AUGUST 27^th, 8:14 am

"Nathan, put the man down!" Bridge snapped. "Now!"

Cable's head whipped around and he gave Bridge a look that would have turned most men into a quivering wreck. Bridge didn't look away, didn't break eye contact for even a moment, but Domino stiffened slightly, obscurely alarmed as she saw the sweat standing out on his forehead.

"Put him down," Bridge repeated slowly, forcing the words out through gritted teeth.

Cable continued to glare at him for a long moment, and then, quite deliberately, dropped Sykes, the P.M.E. representative who had hired them under false pretenses and gotten them into this mess. The stout little accountant yelped as he hit the floor, but scrambled back to his feet quickly. Eyeing Cable nervously, he took off his glasses, wiping them in what was clearly a nervous habit. Domino noted all of this, but most of her attention was on G.W., who had taken a step backwards, his shoulders slumping and a look of incredible relief on his face, as soon as Cable had broken eye contact. Something had happened between the two of them, but she'd be damned if she knew what--or how.

"Ah, yes," Sykes said, obviously trying not to babble, and Domino turned back to him. "That's much better, I'm sure we can talk this over and resolve our problems like civilized people--"

"I have a better idea," Cable growled, and stepped towards the accountant again. Almost before Domino saw him move, Bridge stepped between them and, quite matter-of-factly, slammed a fist into Cable's jaw. Cable stumbled backwards, visibly dazed for a moment, but didn't lose his footing. Rubbing his jaw, he straightened and gave Bridge such a baleful look that Domino flinched, half-expecting him to go for his partner's throat right then and there.

Bridge met that murderous glare with remarkable equanimity. "We all know you're in a foul mood, Nathan. The feeling's mutual. Now, will you settle down before I have to have Grizzly sit on you?"

"Um--G.W., I think you should leave me out of this," Grizzly said a little nervously. Cable gave him a disgusted look, and then turned back to Bridge.

"You got that one free, G.W," he said in a hard voice. "The next one's going to cost you. Now, get out of my way--"

"Not a chance."

"Oath!" Cable snarled, looking skyward as if appealing for divine intervention. "He's a lying, manipulative son of a flonq--"

"He's our employer, damn it! We don't kill our employers, Nathan, even when they deserve it!"

"Sure we can't make an exception?" Domino asked harshly, before she could help herself. Bridge shot her a furious look, and she closed her mouth, seething.

"She's got a point," Grizzly volunteered tentatively. "We let him get away with this, word'll get around and stuff like this'll keep happening--"

"Oh, and you'd prefer to just kill him here and now?" Bridge demanded sarcastically. "Then 'word will get around' that we've taken to murdering our employers, and no one will want to hire us!"

"Ask me if I give a shit for our reputation at this point, G.W.!" Cable snarled bitterly.

"Well, someone has to, Nate," Bridge said bluntly. "He's not worth it--he's just a paper-pusher, damn it! It'd be a waste of ammo." Sykes flinched, paling, but Bridge didn't even look in his direction. "Calm down, all right?" Bridge said more softly, a perplexed look in his dark eyes as he watched Cable. "There are better ways to handle this, Nathan, you know that--"

Domino saw Cable shudder for a moment, as if he was losing his grip on whatever reaction he was struggling to keep in. Then his shoulders slumped, and he turned away, going over to a nearby chair and sitting down. Domino blinked. Did he just--he did. He backed down. Domino reluctantly tore her attention away from him and looked back at Sykes, who had regained his composure with remarkable speed. Bile rose in her throat. She sympathised with Cable's urge to rip the little bastard limb-from-limb. The fact that they'd been tricked into fighting the Harriers was just the tip of a very nasty iceberg. Just thinking about it made her sick.

Ramirez had told his side of the story, told it with such calm, sorrowful bitterness that it hadn't even entered into her mind to question whether or not he was telling the truth. Even if she had, the sight of some of the 'enemy' bodies would have told her something was wrong with the picture P.M.E. had given them. Two of Ramirez's own people had been killed, but the rest of the dead on the other side had been locals. And not just men in their prime, either--the type she'd have expected to find among 'brigands'. No, there had been old men, and boys who'd been little more than children--

The Harriers were only twice the size of the Pack, not nearly enough to carry out an operation like this. But the locals had been more than willing to be trained to help. They had, after all, come to Ramirez in the first place.

"Those mineral rights must be pretty valuable," she heard herself say. Sykes glanced in her direction. "For your company to go to such--lengths," she felt her lip curl, "to get them."

Sykes actually smiled at her. The bastard. "So glad to see that at least one among you understands economic concerns--"

Cable didn't get up, but his glare was enough to make Sykes squirm and take a step backwards. "Economic concerns?" he said almost incredulously. "Economic concerns justify sending out your security troops to 'pressure' the locals into selling you their land? Taking men from their beds and having them beaten--raping their wives in front of them---burning their homes? Your precious flonqing mineral rights are worth that much to you?" His voice was raw with pain by the time he finished, and the silence was electric.

If Sykes had said anything at that moment, Domino honestly thought that she'd have stepped forward and killed him herself, right then and there. Her hands clenched into fists at her sides and her vision blurred with tears as she remembered how Ramirez had broken down at the sight of one particular body. His brother-in-law, he'd told them, and then explained how his sister, the young man's wife, had been nine months pregnant when P.M.E.'s thugs had come to their house in the middle of the night.

It had been stupid of Ramirez to take this job, the coolly logical part of her mind pointed out. Stupid and unprofessional, doomed from the beginning. As a general rule, becoming personally involved got you--or others--killed.

But she understood his reasons. She would probably have done it herself. And the part she'd played in bringing this whole awful mess to its inevitable end left her feeling so filthy that she wondered if she'd ever be clean again. What's wrong with you? a small, disgusted voice asked. It wasn't as if she'd never seen anything like this before. Traveling with Logan, she'd seen worse. But she couldn't get last night and what Ramirez had told them out of her mind. She'd tried to sleep, on the trip back to Guadalajara, but even when she had managed to doze off, the images in her dreams had been so terrible that sleep had been anything but restful.

"If you'd wanted thugs," Bridge was saying to Sykes, "you should have hired thugs." His voice was crisp and calm, not reflecting in the least the storm of emotions she saw in his dark eyes. "God knows there are plenty for hire, out there--"

"We wanted professionals--"

"Shut up before I rip out your vocal cords, you bastard," Bridge said levelly, and Sykes gaped at him for a moment. "We are professionals. Professionals with contacts better than you'd probably imagine of a group of 'hired killers'." Sykes opened his mouth to say something, but Bridge continued inexorably. "We will use those contacts to make sure your activities here come to the attention of people who can do something about it. Those people are just as professional, just as efficient as we are, and once they're finished, I don't think your employers will have much of a company left." Bridge leaned towards Sykes and gave him a cold, cold smile. "Have a nice day, you murdering asshole."

As soon as they were safely in the elevator and it was moving down towards the ground floor of the office building where P.M.E. was quartered, Domino looked up at Bridge inquisitively. "What people were you talking about?"

He smiled thinly. "Better you don't know. Safer, at least. Let's just say they take a very dim view of crap like this."

She raised an eyebrow, but didn't push. SHIELD? she wondered, but put her curiosity aside for the time being. The tension in the elevator was incredible. Hammer was staring fixedly at the wall, but Domino could read the distress beneath his determined mask. He'd been very quiet, ever since they'd found out the truth about this contract. Grizzly stood next to him, fidgeting uncomfortably as he looked from Hammer to Cable, who stood like a statue on his other side. His dispassionate expression was every bit as much of a facade as Hammer's.

"Guys," Bridge said quietly, as the elevator continued downwards. "We can't leave it like this." There was honest warning in his voice, and Domino agreed. They had to thrash this out between them, or, at the very least, their efficiency as a unit would suffer. Worst-case scenario, lingering mistrust and anger would get someone killed.

"Who said I had any intention of leaving it?" Cable asked quietly.

Hammer closed his eyes, pain flashing across his face for just a moment. Domino bit her lip. "Cable," he said in a voice that almost broke. "I didn't know, I swear--"

"This isn't the place," Cable said, just as calmly.

They rode the rest of the way down in silence.

***

HOTEL MERIDA

8:01 pm

"You knew that he didn't know," Domino said, suddenly sure. "Right from when it went bad. That's why you didn't say a word to him until he started--"

"Does that excuse him?" Cable snapped. "Does that excuse any of us? What's that saying, ignorance of the law is no excuse?" He tossed back the rest of his drink and filled the glass again.

The bottle was almost gone, and she was still only working on her second glass. She was starting to get a little worried. Even for someone his size, this was a dangerous amount of alcohol. Tentatively, she reached for the bottle, but he jerked it back out of her reach.

"I'm fine," he growled, giving her a baleful look.

"Nate, you don't drink, you're not used to it--and even if you were, this is still a little on the excessive side." She regarded the three empty tequila bottles, shaking her head. "You are going to feel like shit warmed over in the morning, you know that? If you're lucky."

"Go to hell."

Domino fought down the urge to break one of the empty bottles over his head, to see if the direct approach worked. But his temper seemed a little chancy, and she didn't want to risk it. Getting into a fight with him would be futile, not to mention possibly very embarassing for her. Give her a gun and some breathing room and she'd take on anyone without a second thought, but going hand-to-hand with Cable would be stupid. Even in this state, he could probably pound her into the ground like a tent peg if he put his mind to it. "You really can be a bastard at times, Nathan," she said conversationally.

He gave a harsh bark of laughter. "Oh, believe me, Dom, I know EXACTLY what you think of me--"

"Oh? How's that?" she asked, baring her teeth at him. But he didn't answer, and she decided to let it go. Keep him talking, she told herself firmly. The more he talks, the less he drinks. "What law were you talking about, Nathan?" she asked thoughtfully.

"What?" he asked distractedly, filling up his glass again.

"What law were we all ignoring, Nathan?" she repeated patiently.

He blinked at her. "Law--Dom, what are you talking about?" he asked, and then swallowed, a peculiar expression growing on his face. "I feel--strange."

"Never mind the law. This whole thing's really touched a nerve, hasn't it?" Domino asked, shifting a little at the sneaking suspicion that she was taking advantage of him here. But what he'd called her 'rampaging curiosity' was screaming 'full speed ahead!' "What P.M.E. was doing, I mean--"

"Wasn't right," Cable muttered, swaying a bit.

"I agree totally. But G.W. didn't have to deck ME," she pointed out. "That's the only time I've seen you lose it like that, Cable. Why did you react so strongly? Empathizing is one thing, but that was something else entirely--"

He suddenly straightened and glared at her. "You'd like to know, wouldn't you?" he snarled almost disgustedly. "You figure 'hey, he's drunk out of his skull, why not try and find a few answers to my questions while I've got the opportunity?'" For just a second, there was an expression of such searing pain on his face that she was as rocked by it as if he'd slapped her. Then, the cold expression descended again, and he looked away from her, his mouth twisting bitterly. "Be careful what you wish for, Dom. The truth's an ugly thing, most of the time."

"You think I don't know that?" she parried quickly, feeling her expression settle into a bleak mask for a moment. "We all have our ugly secrets, Nathan." Amazingly enough, that measuring expression was back on his face as he looked at her. She bristled under his scrutiny. "Did you never wonder how I ended up with Logan?" she asked acidly.

"Probably for the same reason you ended up in this life," he said in a curiously neutral voice. "The same reason we all did. The lives we'd rather have, the places we'd rather be--they're gone. Ashes in the wind." This time, his laugh sounded curiously desolate. "Literally, in my case."

"What do you mean?" she asked, tentatively. But he looked away, staring down into the depths of his glass as if it held an answer to some question he desperately wanted to resolve. "Nathan--"

"Just drop it, all right?" he said quietly. "Please?"

She hesitated for a moment, and then nodded. "All right." You really were trying to take advantage of him, you know, her conscience said sternly. "I--apologize," she said, without really thinking about it.

"Oath, Dom, you don't have anything to apologize for," he said wearily, still staring into his glass. They were both silent for a long moment. "I don't blame Hammer," he finally said, abruptly. "I don't expect him to see to the heart of things. Insight's not his strong suit. It was my failure, Dom--as usual." A muscle along his jaw twitched as he raised his glass.

Her eyes narrowed. "Admittedly, I've only know you and the rest for a few months, but I haven't noticed that you have a habit of screwing up, Nate--" Quite the opposite, actually. Even in four months, she'd realized that there was no one else, except Logan, who she'd rather have at her back in a fight. And she was still in awe of his planning skills. Strategy, tactics--he was so good it was almost scary. It was exactly what Logan had said she needed to learn, the reason he'd suggested she join a group. She hoped that he'd let himself admit, someday, that she'd made the right choice in joining up with the Pack.

"Guess that proves I know you better than you know me," he said with a ghost of a smile. "I don't blame Hammer for the way the mission went bad," he continued. "What happened afterwards, though, is another matter entirely."

***

HOTEL MERIDA, ROOM #315

AUGUST 27^th, 10:12 am

"No one's blaming you here, Hammer," Bridge repeated, his tone just as patient as it had been the first five times he'd said the exact same thing. "You don't have to be so defensive."

That, however, sounded a little irritated, Domino reflected glumly. Upon checking into the hotel, they'd gathered here in Bridge's room to 'talk things over', as he'd so delicately put it. They weren't making much headway. To put it mildly.

"Oh, really?" Hammer snapped, pacing restlessly across the room. He shot a furious look at Cable, who hadn't said two words to him since they'd left P.M.E.'s offices. Domino gave Cable a measuring look. Sitting over in a chair in the corner, he might as well have been a statue for all the interest he was showing in the conversation. "Maybe you don't, G.W.--"

"Did I say anything, Hammer?" Cable asked in a level voice, still staring fixedly at the opposite wall.

"You didn't have to, damn it! It's perfectly clear how you feel! I arranged the contract, so it's my fault, right? That's what you're all thinking--"

"Sounds like you're the one with the guilty conscience," Domino muttered. Hammer whirled on her, and for a moment, she thought he was going to launch into the usual 'wait until you've been with the Pack for long enough to know what you're talking about before you open your mouth' speech, but he didn't. He broke eye contact with her almost immediately, and Domino realized that she hadn't been too far off the mark.

"The blame goes enough ways on this that there's not much point in discussing it," Bridge said in his 'let's-be-rational' voice.

"Speak for yourself!" Hammer spat. "Personally, I think this is all Ramirez's fault--"

Cable stiffened, and his left eye started to glow again. Always a warning sign, Domino had noticed. "Excuse me?" he asked coldly, a dangerous edge to the question.

"You heard me!" Hammer tossed over his shoulder. "If he hadn't been out there fucking around, trying to play the knight in shining armor--"

"Whoa, Ham--" Grizzly said, looking distressed. "That's not fair--"

"No?" Hammer said furiously, whirling on Grizzly. "You can't honestly think there's a way to defend what he did--"

"You want to shut up while you still have all your teeth?" Cable snarled, on his feet so quickly that Hammer actually took a step backwards for a moment. *Oh, shit, here we go again,* Domino thought a little wildly as Hammer straightened, glaring at Cable. "What Ramirez tried to do was a good thing, Hammer--even someone like YOU should be able to see that!" Out of the corner of her eye, Domino saw Bridge sink his face into his hands for a moment.

Hammer's expression hardened. "Care to explain what you mean by that?" he asked in a low voice. Domino got the absurd impression that he was almost relieved that Cable had thrown down the gauntlet, so to speak. He could feel free to lash out now, she thought bleakly; Cable had handed him the excuse on a silver platter.

Cable either didn't see that, or didn't care. Domino figured it was probably the latter. He might have seemed to regain his composure for a while, but she honestly didn't think he'd calmed down all that much from when he'd been ready to murder Sykes. "Fine!" he snarled, his eye blazing as he drew himself up to his full height. There wasn't THAT much difference in size between him and Hammer, but Hammer seemed dwarfed by Cable in that moment, his defensiveness and anger an insignificant thing compared to the fury Cable was--emanating, for lack of a better word. "You're using 'professionalism' as an excuse to cover the fact that you have no sense of responsibility to anything but your flonqing bank account! You were only upset about this because you didn't know how it's going to affect the Pack--affect you! You don't care about Ramirez, or what P.M.E.'s been doing to those people--"

"Nate, that's being a little harsh!" G.W. snapped, stepping between the two of them.

"G.W., stay out of this!" Hammer growled, and then turned back to Cable. "Damn it, Nate, Ramirez turned himself into nothing better than a vigilante! We're mercenaries, not--crusaders! If he'd gone off by himself, that would've been one thing, but the Harriers were stupid enough to let him talk them into getting involved, too! And so we ended up fighting friends, because Ramirez had a fucking grudge and didn't stop to think about what the consequences might be! As far as I'm concerned, this IS his fault! He started it--not us!"

Cable's eyes widened. "You can say that, knowing what was happening?" he asked in an oddly labored voice, as if he was having trouble breathing. There was a flash of terrible vulnerability in his eyes, and Domino half-rose, instinctively beginning to respond to it. "Hammer--" It sounded almost like a plea.

"For God's sake, Nathan, get your priorities straight!" Hammer raved, seizing on that moment of weakness like a shark who'd found blood in the water. "Stow the personal garbage--I don't know what's eating you, and I don't particularly care! Why the hell should we be concerned about a bunch of stupid Mexican farmers? If they were smart, they'd knuckle under and make the best of the situation! They're idiots, to think they can fight this--you want my opinion, they brought all of it on themselves!"

He didn't mean it, Domino knew. He was casting around for something, any justification that could alleviate his own feelings of guilt about the whole thing. Hammer could be a bastard, but he wasn't inhuman. Cable surely had to see that, she thought in the moment of shattering silence that followed Hammer's last flung accusation. He wouldn't take him seriously, she told herself as she started to look over at him--

The burning hatred in his eyes as he looked at Hammer, the sheer, unadulterated contempt, nearly staggered her. He spat something in that weirdly musical language of his--by the tone, some sort of profanity--and, pushing past G.W., left the room. The door slammed behind him so hard that Domino winced.

That went well-- She looked over at G.W., who was regarding Hammer with a sort of weary disgust.

"Do you ever think before you open your mouth?" he asked coldly. Hammer started to say something, but G.W. shook his head warningly. "Not one more word until you've heard what I have to say," he snapped, and then looked over at Grizzly and Domino. "I think you two should probably go."

Domino started to protest, but Grizzly grabbed her by the arm, and ushered her, gently but firmly, out of the room. She wrenched free of his grasp as soon as he'd closed the door behind them, and gave him a furious look.

"I don't appreciate being manhandled!"

"Trust me," Grizzly said in an unusual sober voice. "You didn't want to stay."

"Why?" She hurled the question at him, and was almost gratified to see him wince. "More secrets that none of you want the 'probationary' member in on yet?"

"No," Grizzly said grimly. When she continued to glare at him, waiting for an explanation, he sighed. "G.W.--puts up with what goes on between Nate and Hammer, most of the time. But when one of them crosses the line, he usually sets them down pretty hard."

Domino cursed under her breath. "And which one of them crossed the line this time?" she demanded, somewhat facetiously. Sometimes I wish I'd listened to Logan and found a nice, sane group of people to work with--

Grizzly gave a curiously unamused snort. "You ever see Nate walk away from an argument before, Dom?" he asked almost sadly.

***

HOTEL MERIDA

8:08 pm

"Why did you walk out?" Domino asked casually.

"None of your flonqing business," Cable growled. She raised an eyebrow, and he looked away, staring down into his glass. "I would have done something--irrevocable, if I'd stayed." His mouth twisted in a bitter smile. "I would have enjoyed it, mind you--"

"I get the picture," she said with a sigh. "He didn't mean it, you know."

"I know nothing of the sort," he said coldly, stiffening.

"Cable, he was just trying to--"

"Listen, I'm not in the mood to hear anyone apologizing for Hammer!" Cable snapped, swaying again. "And I don't know why you'd ever defend him, Dom. He's been a flonqing bastard to you for four solid months--"

"Maybe because you're being unfair to him," Domino said levelly. He gave her a disgusted look, but she continued calmly. "Maybe because you're letting whatever's 'eating you', as he put it, drive you into lashing out at the closest available target--and to drinking yourself into a coma when there's no target handy."

"That's ridiculous," he said through gritted teeth.

"I don't think so. I think that's exactly what you're doing."

"And how the flonqing hell would you know?" he blazed.

The smile she managed was somewhat twisted. "Because I've done it myself, more than once," she admitted freely. "Although I only TRY to drink myself into a stupor. Curse of an iron head and all that--" He gave her an uncomprehending look, and she sighed. "Seriously, Nate, what makes you think you have it any more together than the rest of us? It doesn't hurt to admit that the world gets a little hard to deal with, once in a while."

His eyes narrowed. "I am not giving up!" he almost spat, his left eye glowing like balefire.

"Whoa!" she said, leaning back slightly in surprise, raising a defensive hand. "I didn't say you were!" She wondered, a little wildly, how he'd managed to misinterpret what she'd said to that extent.

"Let me make this clear," he grated, still looking furious. "I'm going to do something about this. I just--haven't figured out what, yet," he finished, the intensity fading and an almost forlorn note entering his voice.

She filled up her glass again, mostly to buy herself time to think. Taking a sip, she eyed him speculatively. "Mistakes can't be undone, you know," she finally said, a little more brusquely than she'd intended. "Pretending you can just 'fix' things won't do anything but break your heart." Her eyes stung, and she rubbed at them angrily. Okay, maybe I've had a little too much tequila, too. But this whole subject brought back memories she'd thought she'd dealt with years ago, of her own fumbling, childish attempts to avenge, if not repair, the life she'd lost. Thank God Logan had been there to rescue her before she got in too deeply over her head. The experience hadn't been one she'd like to repeat, but it had taught her to pick her battles; a valuable lesson, if one that had come at a particularly high cost.

"Mistakes can be undone," Cable said in a strangely remote voice. "It's only a question of whether they should be--" Then he blinked, visibly shaking himself, and gave her a searching look. She blanked her expression and met his gaze with a raised eyebrow, hoping he hadn't caught that moment of weakness on her part. An unreadable expression flashed across his face and was gone again before she could decipher it.

"Do you honestly believe that, or are you just trying to convince yourself that there IS something you can do?" Domino said defensively, before he could say anything else. "The world's a pretty lousy place, Nate. People--good people, innocent people, die. You can't save them all--"

His left hand closed spasmodically around his glass, which shattered. His left eye blazing, his face set in an expression of such anguished fury that Domino flinched despite herself, Cable didn't even seem to notice. "If you EVER say that to me again--EVER!--I swear, you'll wish you'd never heard of the Pack!" he almost roared at her.

"Just like a man," she said bitingly, straightening and meeting his eyes without a moment's hesitation. "When all else fails, win the argument through sheer volume." Inwardly, she was wondering exactly what it was she'd said that had set him off. That he can't save them all? she thought hesitantly. But why would that push him over the edge? That was just reality, and she'd never seen him as overly idealistic.

He glared at her for a moment longer, but then the anger just seemed to drain out of him, like water through a sieve. "Go away," he muttered almost desperately, his shoulders slumping as he turned away from her. The bartender, with an expression that suggested he thought he was taking his life in his hands, scuttled up with a dustbin and small hand broom to remove the broken glass. Cable didn't even seem to register his presence.

"What is it?" she asked him gently, too concerned to worry about being irritated with him for biting her head off. "Come on, Nate, whatever it is, it can't hurt to talk about it--"

"Oh, that's rich, coming from you," he said bitterly. "You, who wouldn't even explain what all that business with Creed was about back in Toronto--"

She stiffened. "I thought Creed said quite enough for the two of us," she said harshly. There was no way she was getting into that particular topic, not with Cable, not with anyone in the Pack. They wouldn't understand. They couldn't understand.

"You'd be surprised," Cable muttered.

Domino felt her eyes widen in startlement. "W-What?" she stammered. She hadn't said that out loud, had she?

His eyes flickered to her for a moment, almost nervously. "About what Creed said, I mean. I think. I've--" He blinked, shaking his head. "I'm drunk. Don't listen to me."

Domino caught herself tapping her fingers agitatedly on the bar, and stopped, biting her lip in irritation. He had to have been just answering her earlier question, she told herself firmly, from when she'd asked him whether it would hurt to talk about it. That was it. That HAD to be it. What other answer could there be?

Do you really believe that, or are you trying to convince yourself? a voice asked her in a snide echo of yet another question she'd asked Cable.

"All right," she said abruptly, forcing the problem to the back of her mind for now. "You're drunk. If you're not going to tell me why you're so upset, would you at least tell me why you chose this way of expressing it?"

He shrugged almost apathetically, but there was a definite tension in his posture. "Seemed like a good idea at the time."

***

HOTEL MERIDA

4:43 pm

Cable stepped into the restaurant, lightly scanning the area to make sure Hammer was nowhere in the vicinity. Nodding wearily to himself as he caught no trace of the familiar psi-imprint, he went over to the bar and sat down.

He'd finally decided to leave his room--it had begun to seem awfully confining after the first few hours, like the walls were closing in on him or something. Being alone with your own thoughts wasn't always a good thing. He'd tried to meditate, to clear his mind and achieve at least some semblance of calm, but it had been utterly futile. If anything, it had only made him more tense. The hours of solitude should have allowed him to gain at least some distance from the events of the last twenty-four hours, but they were just as immediate--just as painful as they'd been in the first place.

So many similarities-- A different time, different people--oath, an entirely different world, really, and yet some things still remained the same. The powerful were still exploiting--still brutalizing--the weak. And people like Hammer were still writing it off as inevitable. The way of the world.

Cable swallowed, remembering what he'd seen in Ramirez's mind. Images that had almost leapt from the other man's mind to his own, scenes of violence and grief and suffering--so much the same, Cable thought again, a dull pain in his chest. They could have been moments from his own past, scenes from that horrible year after his Clan had been crushed in battle--when the Canaanite army had been set loose on the lands the Clan Chosen had protected for so long. Set loose to murder and rape and destroy, anything they wanted so long as they left no one alive who had dared to give their alleigance to the Clan, dared to dream of freedom--

He understood Ramirez better than Bridge or the rest of the Pack would ever know. Hadn't he taken on the mantle of avenger, once the remnants of his Clan had broken him out of prison? With the memory of all the death he'd seen driving him--Stryfe and Parridian Haight's idea of fitting punishment, that he should witness what his 'treason' against the Canaanite Order had cost those who'd believed in him--he'd thirsted for revenge. And he hadn't settled for blowing up equipment and attacking supply convoys, as Ramirez had done. No, he'd waded in Canaanite blood, and relished every moment of it. He'd lost himself in slaughter, and, as much as he might like to pretend otherwise, he certainly hadn't limited himself to military targets--

I have no right to be arguing morality with anyone, he thought bleakly, shame churning within him. I left 'moral' behind years ago.

But Ramirez hadn't. His actions weren't at all questionable, in Cable's mind. He'd seen injustice, and carefully gone about putting a stop to it. He hadn't caught any innocents in the crossfire, had shed no blood other than that of P.M.E.'s own security guards.

We were on the wrong side, Cable thought desolately. We let ourselves be used--how could I have missed seeing it? He hadn't deep-scanned Sykes or the security guards--he was running on the ragged edge lately when it came to his powers, and he'd been satisfied with what he'd seen in their body language and read in their voices. Stupid--careless--how could I have let my responsibilities slide like that? He wanted to throw back his head and scream out his frustration. He wanted Sykes there, within reach--or P.M.E.'s security guards all lined up in a neat row and a gun with a full clip in his hand. This is my fault, all of it--not Ramirez, not Hammer. Mine.

"Hello, sir," the bartender said, and Cable looked up at him dully, too tired and sick at heart to snarl at the man for the interruption. "Can I get you something?"

Cable started to tell him no, but then hesitated. What was that phrase Bridge was always using? 'Drowning your sorrows?' He skimmed the bartender's mind lightly, frowning.

"Umm--tequila, I guess," he said, randomly picking a variety of alcohol. Oath, it wasn't as if he had any basis for comparison. Maybe I should start with the letter 'a' and work my way through the alphabet--

"A single, sir?" The bartender gave him what was probably supposed to be a friendly smile. "If you don't mind me saying, you look like you've had a hard day. A double, maybe?" It was a joke, but it kindled an odd feeling inside Cable.

"No," he said, recklessly. "A bottle."

Part Three

HOTEL MERIDA

8:10 pm

"So let me get this straight," Domino said skeptically. "You had no particular reason for deciding to get hamm--drunk," she corrected hastily. No, I don't think we'll use that particular euphemism today-- The thought almost made her laugh, even under these circumstances. She didn't, though; something told her he would most certainly NOT appreciate it. "You just--decided to try it."

"Amazing," Cable said absently. He seemed distracted, as if his mind was elsewhere. "You do listen--"

"And you expect me to believe that?"

A hand came down on her shoulder. "No," Bridge said in an entirely too pleasant voice. "But I expect you to drop the subject, Dom."

Shaking off his hand, she looked up at him defensively, a little surprised by the anger in his dark eyes. "What?" she demanded. "Did I violate some unwritten rule or something?"

The corner of Bridge's mouth quirked, but he didn't answer. Grizzly, standing behind him, gave her a tentatively repentant look, as if apologizing for his timing. Bridge gave Cable a measuring look, and then turned back to her. "You and Grizz were going to have dinner, weren't you? Why don't you do that--somewhere else."

"What, you think I'm going to turn around and march out of here like a good, obedient--"

"I'm sorry, did that sound like a suggestion?" Bridge asked, his tone almost genial. "It wasn't."

"Always rescuing me, G.W.," Cable murmured almost ironically, before Domino could give Bridge's words the reply they deserved. "You're making a bad habit of that. One of these days, you'll figure out it's better to leave me to my fate." He gave a humorless laugh, and tossed back the rest of his drink. He reached for the bottle again, but G.W. quite deliberately yanked it back out of reach. Cable scowled at him.

Puzzled by his comment, Domino opened her mouth to say something, but Bridge's expression hardened, becoming so implacable that she was taken aback. "Have a good time," he said in a voice underlaid with steel, and gave Grizzly a significant look.

Domino fumed for a moment, but then found herself nodding and following Grizzly out of the restaurant. Maybe it was better this way, she told herself. Bridge had known Cable for a lot longer than she had. He might even know what was wrong, or at least convince Nate to call it a night. I hope--

It felt so strange, to be so concerned about a man she barely knew. But she was. Part of her didn't want to leave, even though she knew, logically, that she hadn't been doing any good.

I'm not a flonqing puzzle, girl. You can't solve me.

She hesitated at the door, looking back just in time to see Bridge sit down beside Cable at the bar. Was that it? She saw him as a challenge? I'm not that shallow--I hope.

"C'mon, Dom," Grizzly said. "G.W. says there's a good Chinese place down the street--"

She gave him a hard look, wondering if he was pulling her leg. "A Chinese restaurant? In Guadalajara? That was a joke, right?"

Grizzly looked puzzled. "Umm--actually, I'm not sure."

Domino sighed and took his arm. "Fine," she said, a little more petulantly than she'd intended. "Let's go take a look, then." She could put a leash on her curiosity for the time being, she supposed. It hadn't been really fair of her to try and get him to open up when he was in that kind of state, anyway. Kind of like kicking the man when he was down--

And besides, when she DID get him to open up--and she would, if she had to keep trying for the next twenty years--she wanted to be able to look on it as an honest victory. Not something achieved through trickery. Domino couldn't help a small, sheepish laugh as they walked across the lobby to the front doors of the hotel. Grizzly gave her a questioning look, but she waved it off.

I'm already characterizing my relationship with Cable as a battle, she thought dryly. How bizarre is that? Bizarre--and yet somehow appropriate in a way, she sensed. A battle she'd never expected to fight, and one that, for some reason she couldn't quite vocalize yet, she desperately wanted to win.

***

Bridge raised an eyebrow at the neat little row of tequila bottles. "You're going to have one hell of a hangover in the morning, Nathan," he said heavily. It was the only thing he could think of to say.

"So?" Cable asked, studying his empty glass as if he saw something fascinating in it. "I'll just find the dog and bite it."

Bridge closed his eyes, biting back what would have been an entirely inappropriate laugh. "Well, that's one way to deal with the morning after," he said dryly. People were starting to trickle into the restaurant for dinner, so he kept his voice low. He studied his friend for a moment, shaking his head. If I didn't know better, I'd think Grizz was pulling my leg. I mean, Nate? Singing?

"Yes, I was singing," Cable said with a shrug. "So?"

Bridge cracked a grin. "Just wishing I'd been here to see it."

"No, you don't."

"You're right, I don't." Bridge sighed. "Just trying to lighten the mood, Nate--"

"Don't bother."

"All right," Bridge said placatingly. "I won't." Trying to jolly Nate out of a bad mood was futile under ordinary circumstances. He lifted up one of the tequila bottles, regarding it bemusedly. "You know, when I told you back in Toronto that a mercenary who didn't drink stood out, I didn't mean for you to throw yourself into it like this--"

"G.W.--" Cable started, sounding impatient.

"A beer with the Pack, maybe. Maybe even a night on the town. Not you sitting here alone, trying to see how many brain cells you can kill off in one night."

Cable glared at him. "I don't feel particularly social," he said, biting off the end of each word as if it galled him to feel obligated to answer. "Now, will you go away and let me be?" He gave the bottle sitting over by Bridge a measuring look. "That one was almost empty anyway." He started to look around for the bartender. Who'd probably done a vanishing act if he had any sense at all, Bridge thought wryly.

"I think you've had enough, Nate," he said mildly.

"Funny thing, G.W., you don't look like my mother," Cable growled, and then made an exaggerated gesture with the empty glass. "Oops. Forgot--I don't have a mother. Lucky me."

Bridge shook his head slowly. "You're really wallowing in it, aren't you?"

Cable's head whipped around. "Excuse me?" he snarled.

"You heard me. You don't usually let your self-pity get the better of you to this extent--"

Cable's eyes narrowed, and Bridge grunted, rocking backwards as his mind was suddenly filled with a series of brief images that flashed like summer lightning and were gone. Fire, gunshots, people screaming--like a reel of film, they finally, mercifully came to an end. Bridge shook his head to clear it, and gave Cable a sharp look.

"What was that?"

"That's what I got from Ramirez and his people," Cable said, looking away. "Right there, at the top of their minds--didn't even have to scan them. All of it--oath, it just about jumped out at me."

Troubled, Bridge regarded his friend for a long, silent moment. He'd never thought very much about that aspect of his friend's abilities. Nathan's telepathy was a useful 'wild card'. It had saved their asses on a number of occasions. But it hadn't even occurred to him to blame Nathan for missing something this time. He'd been overusing his abilities on their last few jobs, and it had been taking a toll on him, Bridge knew. Besides, he was doing a thorough job of kicking himself in the ass, by the look of it.

"We've seen worse," Bridge said bluntly. He found himself remembering that last job in Guatamela, just before they'd met Domino in Toronto. That burned-out village they'd found--Cable had been moodier than usual for weeks afterwards. It was a pattern he'd noticed often, in the years he'd been working with this man. It wasn't that Cable was any less tough, any less hardened to the sort of atrocities people in their line of work saw all too often, but Bridge had been partnered with the man for years now, and he could pretty much tell when there was pain hiding behind the mask. Maybe this sort of thing hit Nathan so hard because he was a telepath, or maybe it was something else, old ghosts--"So what is all this supposed to accomplish?" Bridge asked, gesturing at the tequila bottles. "What are you trying to do? Get yourself drunk enough that you don't remember what you saw anymore?"

Cable's laugh had a strangely wild edge to it. "That was the plan, Bridge, but you know what? It didn't work out that way. The reverse happened. I'm remembering everything, clear as day. And I'm seeing even more." He rose, swaying slightly, and stumbled over to a nearby table, staring down at a middle-aged man in a business suit who looked half-offended, half-terrified of the towering stranger who'd suddenly taken an interest in him. Cable gave him an oddly savage smile, and then looked back at Bridge. "For instance," he said, his voice sounding a little slurred for the first time. "I know that Bill here is sleeping with his best friend's wife." He shook his head at 'Bill', giving him a reproving look. "Not very honorable of you, Bill--"

Oh, holy shit-- Bridge thought, getting up hurriedly. "Sorry," he said quickly to the shocked Bill. "He's had a little too much to drink--he doesn't really--"

Cable gave him an almost haughty look. "Shut up, G.W. I can speak for myself, thank you very much--"

"Nate--"

"Ramon!" Cable's gaze settled on another man, this one sitting with an attractive but motherly-looking woman in a booth on the other side of the restaurant. "Tell me, does your wife there know you cross-dress on weekends?"

Bridge reached out and grabbed Cable's arm, trying very hard to sit on the urge to break into laughter. There really was nothing at all funny about this, but still--shit, he's going to want to shoot himself when he sobers up. All these years keeping his telepathy a secret-- "Nate, either you come with me now or I slug you," he said firmly. "Your choice."

"Bridge, go flonq yourself! I'm not finished yet!" Cable turned and glared at a beautiful young woman who was sitting with an older, white-haired man. "Cynthia! You should be ashamed of yourself! Franz loves you, and you're just sleeping with him for his money?"

"Nathan!" Bridge snapped. "Enough!"

Cable blinked at him. "What? Better he finds out now, before she finally worms her way into his will and gets around to having him killed--" The guilty, terrified shock on the young woman's face was enough to tell Bridge that Cable had described her intentions quite accurately.

"Nate, look at me," Bridge said sharply, grabbing his arm. Cable did, but couldn't quite seem to focus on him. Bridge had no idea how alcohol affected a telepath's powers, but there was something alarming going on here. It was like Nathan was connecting with random minds and couldn't quite manage to stop himself. "You need to come with me, all right? Cool down, sleep this off--"

Cable wrenched out of his grasp with a snarl. "Oath, G.W., I am so sick of you WORRYING about me all the time! If you knew what I--if you knew everything you wanted to know about me, you'd either get sick yourself or want to shoot me, I'm not sure which! I don't--" He swayed so alarmingly that G.W. reached out instinctively to support him, but Cable swore and tried to step away, nearly losing what was left of his balance in the process. "Would you just leave me ALONE?"

"Dayspring, what in the name of the Bright Lady do you think you're doing?" came a querulous voice from behind Bridge. He whirled, and looked down at the oddest creature he had ever seen in his life. He didn't know WHAT it was--hairless and bug-eyed, it was dressed in peculiar clothing and carrying a staff.

"Who the hell--" It was as far as he got before the world froze around him, and he knew nothing more.

***

"Blaquesmith, don't you dare!" Cable snarled as Bridge and everyone else in the room turned into living statues. His head was spinning, but he managed to meet his teacher's eyes, and saw the mixture of bafflement and irritation there.

"You've made it necessary, Dayspring," the enigmatic little Askani said reprovingly. "At this juncture, Bridge is permitted to know of your abilities, but should these others gossip, and should that gossip reach the ears of your other--companions, critical events could be jeopardized. As I tell you, over and over again, you must exercise caution--"

"I don't CARE!" Cable shouted at him, beside himself with anger at Blaquesmith's interference. Actually, maybe it was Blaquesmith who was beside himself, he thought, suddenly confusedly. There seemed to be two of him, at least. Both of them sighed, giving him an aggrieved look, and then glowed briefly with a telekinetic halo.

And the world turned upside-down. Once the room stopped moving, Cable found himself staring up at the ceiling. He 'up-ended' me again, he thought, a growing resentment burning within him. That--

"You are being foolish and self-indulgent, boy." The two Blaquesmiths were looming above him, identical expressions of disapproval on their faces. "Wallowing in self-pity when there is important work to be done--"

All right, that was the second time he'd been accused of that tonight, and he'd had enough! Blindly, he lashed out with what little telekinetic power he could focus, and the Blaquesmiths gave a grunt of surprise as they were hurled backwards.

Anger faded, and Cable sat up, too quickly. He looked around frantically, but didn't see Blaquesmith anywhere. Oath, what did I just do?* he thought, bewildered. He didn't even know where that momentary flash of strength had come from. #Blaquesmith?# he sent out tentatively, and then nearly blacked out as a powerful attack slammed right through his shields.

#That will be quite enough of that, boy!# Blaquesmith's voice echoed sharply in his mind, trapping him quite securely in a telepathic grip that prevented him from accessing his powers. #By the Dream, what's gotten into you?#

Cable had the absurd mental image of an enormous Blaquesmith, grabbing a tiny version of him up by the scruff of his neck and shaking him soundly. That was what this felt like--

#Let go, you little--#

#Then control yourself!#

#All right!#

Abruptly, he was released. Cable opened his eyes, blinking in an attempt to clear his vision, and glared at Blaquesmith as his mentor crouched down in front of him. "Sorry," Nathan said with a twisted smile, just to get a reaction. "I probably shouldn't have done that, should I?"

"Most certainly not!" Blaquesmith said indignantly.

"Never thought that was fair," Cable said. He was beginning to feel more dazed, not less. "You get to dump me on my rear every time I do or say anything you don't approve of, but I can't do anything in return? Definitely not fair, old man. How about you let me drop you off a building, just to even things out--"

"Dayspring? Have you lost your senses entirely?" Blaquesmith interrupted harshly.

"No, I haven't lost my senses. At least, I don't think so. Actually, I think I probably lost them a long time ago, don't you?" Cable started to shake his head, but then thought better of it. The room might start moving again. He tried to laugh. It came out sounding rather strange. "You, me, everyone on this flonqing crusade of ours--we're all crazy as ducks."

"As WHAT?"

"Ducks. You know, off our chairs. Mad as haberdashers. We've misplaced our marbles." Blaquesmith was giving him a peculiar measuring look, and Cable bristled. "Stop looking at me like that. I haven't suddenly sprouted a third eye or something, have I?"

"Not that I've noticed," Blaquesmith said carefully, and then shook his head again. "I should not have left you alone for this long, I see."

"Yeah, left me on a bit too long of a leash this time, old man--"

"We will discuss this," Blaquesmith said firmly, as if coming to a decision. He glanced around at the frozen patrons of the restaurant.

"You go discuss it. You've always been fond of the sound of your own voice," Cable snapped, trying and failing to get to his feet. Gritting his teeth, he tried again and made it this time. Although he really wished there was a wall within reach, just for support. Settling for the bar, he leaned back against it, staring bleakly at the frozen G.W. If he knew--if he had ANY idea about this, or the other times, he'd hate me for it--

"We will discuss this now," Blaquesmith said, sounding like he was at the end of his patience. "But not here."

Cable stiffened, but before he could even open his mouth to protest, the restaurant around them vanished as Blaquesmith teleported, and took him along for the ride.

***

"Don't DO that!" Nathan snapped, swaying unsteadily as they re-materialized in his room. Blaquesmith sighed, reaching out to support his student, but Nathan pulled away, staggering over to the bed and collapsing onto it. "I hate it when you do that," he said, his voice muffled. "Bodysliding me around without asking me first, pulling me back and forth at whim--"

Blaquesmith approached the bed as Nathan turned over onto his back. "You never mentioned this dislike to me before," he said carefully. Nathan stared up at the ceiling, blinking as if he was trying to focus on something and not quite managing it.

"Would you have cared?" he finally asked.

Blaquesmith frowned. "Perhaps. In any case, what is--"

Nathan grabbed one of the pillows and placed it over his head. "I'm not listening--"

"Dayspring, this is extremely childhish behaviour--"

"So?"

Blaquesmith sighed. "Nathan, look at me."

"Go flonq yourself."

"Nathan!"

Nathan sat up swiftly, throwing the pillow aside and glaring at him with an expression that was equal parts resentment and defiance. "I meant that," he said, very slowly and clearly. "I am not in the mood for a flonqing lecture tonight, old man." He started to get up, but then sank back down on the bed again, looking dazed. "I don't feel well."

"Understandable, considering the amount of alcohol you consumed tonight," Blaquesmith said, not quite as severely as he might have. He shook his head. "What possessed you, Nathan?"

"I did it just to piss you off, old man," Nathan snarled sarcastically. "Why do you think?" He fell back on the bed, staring at the ceiling again. "Stars," he said, his voice suddenly faint. "There are stars in the ceiling--see them?"

Blaquesmith extended a light telepathic probe into his student's mind, skimming over the events of the past few days. He understood, now, why Nathan had been projecting his distress so strongly that he'd sensed it halfway across the world. "I see," he said gently. "Stars."

"I saw it all, you know," Nathan continued in that same distant voice. "In their minds, while we were helping the wounded. Everything that happened to those people--it wasn't as bad as what the Canaanites did. Not on the same--scale, but still--"

"It felt very--familiar," Blaquesmith supplied. Nathan was silent. Blaquesmith touched his mind again, making certain adjustments telepathically to mitigate the effects of the alcohol he'd consumed. I shall leave him the headache, though--the foolish boy certainly deserves that much, at least. But Blaquesmith couldn't be too angry at his student, even for indulging in such self-destructive behaviour. He had been there, after all, when the rescue party led by Tetherblood had returned from their successful raid on the Canaanite prison at Palas, where Nathan had been taken after Stryfe had crushed the Clan Chosen forces in that final, cataclysmic battle at Anikia. While the healers had labored to repair the damage done to Nathan's body, Blaquesmith had tried to reach him on a psychic level, risked his own life to travel a mindscape gone dark with grief and despair.

First weeks, then months had passed as he'd tried to nurture that last, defiant spark, all that was left of the proud Clan Chief and tireless revolutionary leader Nathan had been before the Canaanites had destroyed everything he'd fought for and then done their best to break him. Blaquesmith had thought, for an alarming length of time, that he was fighting a losing battle--but once Nathan had recovered physically, that spark had indeed grown, but grown into a raging inferno. Blaquesmith had spent the next year trying to keep his student from succumbing completely to madness, from losing himself in blood-lust as terrible as anything Stryfe had ever exhibited.

"Nathan," Blaquesmith said carefully. "You must not--connect so deeply with these people. This life you're leading--it is merely a way of orienting yourself in this time. You yourself have admitted as much to me--"

"Using people," Nathan muttered, closing his eyes, and the sense of exhaustion Blaquesmith suddenly got from him was staggering. "I'm so--tired of using people, Blaquesmith."

"It is for the greater good," Blaquesmith said, frowning.

"Good, evil--tell me, how does either apply to what we do?" Nathan sighed. "G.W.'s always saying there's no black and white. Only shades of grey--" He snorted. "There's a pun in there somewhere, I'm sure--"

"That is very wise," Blaquesmith said, somewhat impressed. He wouldn't have credited Bridge with the capability for such insight.

"Thought you'd like that. I don't, Blaquesmith. I want the black and white, flonq it all--" Nathan rubbed his eyes. "I want to know that what I'm doing is right. Not just neccessary."

"Neccessity is right," Blaquesmith reminded him gently.

"I'll have to take your word for it. Nothing feels right anymore--" Nathan slid his medallion out from underneath his shirt, toying with it moodily. "I just wish--I wish I could connect with the Pack. Well, maybe not Hammer--but you know what I mean."

"I do," Blaquesmith nodded. "You are looking for the Clan you have lost, Dayspring; the part of you that is gone. Much as I wish it were otherwise, you will not find it here."

An expression of purest pain crossed Nathan's face, and was gone again. "I--know," he said hoarsely.

Blaquesmith, caught between frustration and a deep, tearing pity such as he hadn't allowed himself to feel in years, strode over to the bed and laid a hand on Nathan's forehead. "Sleep," he said softly. It was child's play to 'nudge' his thoughts into a sleep-pattern. Nathan closed his eyes with a sigh, the tension draining from his body. His breathing grew deep and even almost immediately. Blaquesmith stared down at his student's face, so peaceful in repose, for a long time. He remembered the love he had cherished for this man's sister, and the pain he'd felt for her as he'd watched the Sisterhood tear itself apart. Her dream, her hope for the future, damaged beyond repair if not destroyed entirely. It seemed cruelly ironic that Nathan should have suffered much the same sort of defeat; all those years of faith and sacrifice, building the Clan, gaining support, only to lose it all.

"Neither of you would have been chosen if you were not capable," he said, to the sleeping man and the woman who was both long-dead and not yet born. "The universe knows what it is about." But the old saying sounded rather hollow, and brought him no comfort.

***

HOTEL MERIDA,

AUGUST 28^th, 8:13 am

Domino strode into the restaurant, glancing around until she saw the secluded corner booth where the rest of the Pack was already seated, having breakfast. "Hi, guys," she said with determined cheerfulness. "Sorry I'm late, but I slept in."

"Well, this isn't a formal meeting," G.W. said a little ironically. "So I'm sure we'll all excuse you."

"How can I ever thank you?" Domino said drolly, and looked around at her other tablemates, measuringly. Grizzly was busy stuffing his face, but he kept eyeing everyone watchfully, as if he expected an argument to break out at any moment. But neither of the two directions such an outburst was liable to come from looked inclined to start anything, Domino noted thankfully. Hammer actually gave her a reasonably polite nod. He was still clearly troubled, if certainly less hostile than yesterday. Cable was staring out the window at the street, looking distracted.

Domino tilted her head, regarding him thoughtfully. Yes, he did look a little green--"So," she asked mischievously, determined to lighten the mood. "How did the 'sampling' go last night?"

Cable gave her a startled look. "The--what?"

Domino raised an eyebrow, impressed. "Hey, you two really must have had a good time." The two of them had been sitting at the bar, G.W. joking about starting with the letter 'a' and working their way down from there. She had no idea why Cable had decided on last night to start experimenting, but it had been pretty cute, actually. He probably just wanted to blow off some steam, she told herself firmly, perplexed by the little ripple of anxiety that the image of Cable sitting at the bar provoked. "What did you finally settle on?" she asked, dismissing that peculiar, niggling worry.

"Tequila," Bridge said wryly, and rolled his eyes. "Only after he'd tried just about everything else they had in stock, though. I've got to tell you, Nate, you're the moodiest damned drunk I've ever known--"

Hammer actually cracked a smile. "Cable getting drunk. Next thing you know, hell'll be freezing over--"

Cable was giving them all a curiously wary look, and Domino frowned. "You really don't remember?" She glanced reprovingly at Bridge. "G.W., you didn't neccessarily had to get him THAT drunk the first time out--"

"No, I remember," Cable said a little too quickly, and Domino chuckled. "Just--I've got a bit of a headache, that's all." He swallowed, looking a little ill, and then shook his head. "I was just telling the others that we've got a few weeks before our next employer needs us. Might as well take advantage of it--"

"I think I'll go home for a bit," Hammer said quietly. "Put things in perspective." There seemed to be something very interesting about his plate. He was staring at it rather intently.

Grizzly shrugged. "I like it here. Except for the heat."

"Fine, whatever," Cable said almost irritably. "Just as long as you show up in London by the fifteenth. Until then, you can go yak-hunting for all I care--"

"Someone got up on the wrong side of the bed," Domino said sweetly. Ordinarily, that would have provoked at least a glare, but he didn't even look at her. She frowned. "Eat something," she finally said. "You'll feel better if you do."

"I'm not hungry," he muttered, and rose. Bridge gave him a startled look, but Cable didn't seem to notice. "I've--got some business of my own to take care of," he said roughly. "I'll see you in a few weeks."

As he started past her, Domino reached out and grabbed his wrist. "Nate, you all right?" she asked concernedly. He'd been so upset yesterday, after all--but she'd figured he'd gotten it out of his system last night. He'd certainly seemed a great deal more mellow when she'd seen him with G.W. before she and Theo had left--

"Just fine, Dom," he said tonelessly, looking anywhere but at her. "Have a good time." She let go of him, and he left without a backward glance. There goes a man with something on his mind, she thought with a frown, and gave Bridge an inquiring look. He seemed a little troubled, but shrugged in response to her unspoken question.

"He'll be fine--probably just needs some time away."

"Yeah, probably," Domino said, craning her neck to catch one last look at him. But he was already gone.

***

Cable shut and locked the door of his room behind him, his hands shaking. The nausea he'd felt upon waking this morning returned tenfold, and he gritted his teeth, determined not to give in to it.

He did it. I should have known he would--damn him! He'd seen the false memories in their minds, and they were certainly well-constructed. Perfectly convincing. They'd all been so content in their ignorance, blissfully innocent of the fact that they'd been the victims of a very sophisticated sort of manipulation last night. Cable wondered bleakly how many other minds Blaquesmith had invaded in order to cover his 'lapse' in self-control. Just the thought of his made his headache worse.

Stupid--so stupid, all of it! What had gotten into him? Blaquesmith hadn't touched his memories. He could recall everything with perfect clarity, as if he'd been entirely sober. Domino's curiosity, G.W.'s concern--Blaquesmith. Cable turned, leaning his forehead against the solid wood of the door, wondering if slamming his head against it a few times would help.

He'd let his emotions get the better of him. There was no excuse for that, none at all. And somehow, it made things worse, that Blaquesmith hadn't so much as scolded him for such contemptible behavior. He'd been understanding, even kind in his own peculiar way--Cable writhed inwardly, remembering Blaquesmith's last words.

You are looking for the Clan you have lost, Dayspring; the part of you that is gone. Much as I wish it were otherwise, you will not find it here.

I--know.

Accept this. You must mourn them and move on. What is, is--

Cable felt his throat tighten, a rebellious spark flickering into life deep inside him. The words themselves sounded so callous. You couldn't shut your heart off--Bright Lady knows he'd tried.

Mourn them and move on.

Move on. Put it behind him. The sensible thing to do, probably, but how could he? If he moved on, if he forgot--he made it all meaningless. Dishonored the dead.

--will not find it here.

Of course he wouldn't. Especially when he hadn't even let himself look.

Accept--

Easier said than done.

What is, is--

But there was a small voice, quiet but firm, with a different question. A question that Blaquesmith would have scorned as blasphemy, or wishful thinking at the very best.

But what if--? it asked. And Nathan wished he had the courage to try and find the answer.

fin