...spark?

This... this wasn't happening. They were angry, yes, one or the other or both of them always seemed to be angry, but Jor could not recall a time when it had come to this. They had tried before, of course-- she with words and he with fists-- but as she held him there he felt it was the first time.

"What are you doing?" he asked her in a breathless rasp, trying to tear his gaze away from the gun and to her face instead, but failing. "Wick?"

"Go home, Jordan," she repeated, and this time he did manage to meet her eyes. They were determinedly blank, giving him no sign of emotion, fury or otherwise, to understand this, and he took a deep breath, his face growing dark. "Is that for me, or for her?"

The look she gave him when he stepped forward was enough, and Jor saw in her eyes exactly what had been in his, and he turned away without a word.

She returned the gun to its holster and turned her horse back to the trees.

The crickets were loud, but she could easily make out the sound of the horse's hooves, and that meant Kat could too. She tried to keep him at a walk, but he could sense her nervousness and kept wanting to move more quickly, and the best she could manage to hold him to was a quick trot. She unslung the flashlight from the saddle and turned it on, but used it only to light her own way, and she didn't stop until she'd reached the large clearing she'd been looking for.

The little aluminum shiv she'd made one night on the streets made another slow pass through the dirt, and she leaned over to smudge out an imperfection before continuing to make spirals and loops and whorls and all matters of lazy designs as she thought. She was buying time, each drawing another way to take up countless minutes while she sat there thinking, wondering, dreaming of Mode.

There was no point, she'd decided the day before, to keep up the pretense. There was no reason for her to be here. All those months trying to survive, all the time it took for her to find her sister; it had been wasted, for there was nothing for her to do, nothing she could do. Charybdis was hundreds, maybe thousands, of miles away. Her son was lightyears past that. And Owen, who held the key to her battle, the yes or no verdict, was all but silent.

Kat was tired of hoping.

At first she filled her time with other distractions, finding Jor to be the perfect way to take her mind off of darker, more unpleasant things. When she was bored, he always had some interesting task to teach her, some new game or skill or entertainment. When she was lonely, he always had encouraging words, and while she never believed him, it was reassuring nonethless.

And when she was angry... well, Mode had always been loathe to fight back. Jor did not have such restraints.

She fought him, more and more frequently, more and more viciously. He was easy to spurn into violence, and she reveled in it, finding him just as adept at hurting her as she was at hurting him. Before, she'd always turned to hunting, but with Jor there was no need; he was a stable source of prey, one she could target over and over again, and he never ran away.

For awhile, it was glorious. She could forget everything in his mean words and heavy blows. It kept her in balance, this violence, letting her be happy, but it couldn't distract her forever. Eventually even Jor could not silence her fears, and then, just like that, it became too much. She'd run away, run out of the house and into the forest, and for hours and hours she ran. That had been two days ago.

The woods were like home, like the little woods behind the I.F. facility where Jax was buried. Here, though, she could run forever without finding a fence or a guard, and without a direction or a purpose she wandered. It made her feel cleaner, to be out here, with nothing to hurt but herself.

Yet here she was, considering that again.

"Dead," she whispered to herself as she traced through the dust, drawing careful lines; a curve of chin here, the corner of an eye here, until a clumsy resemblance of him stared up at her from the soil. Beside him she drew herself, and then Jacks, and Kat looked down at her little picture family and whispered it again. "Dead..."

Who was she kidding? Mode was dead. Jacks was lost to her. The latter would grow up and forget her, forget them, and the former was waiting for her in the darkness. She should go to him. They had promised that, to never leave one another, but he had been taken again and she didn't know if she could survive another four years. She didn't know if she could even survive tonight. It would be better to find him, for he would be waiting, and then someday, in a long, long time, they could all be reunited.

She was trying to decide where to cut first when the sound of a gunshot broke through the night.

Her head snapped up, and she looked around with wide eyes and narrow pupils, shifting back and forth as she tried to find the source. It wasn't more than a few seconds before another shot rang out, and she hesitated.

Curiosity finally won out over despondency, and she rubbed out the last trace of her contemplation from the dust and stood.

Just one last look, and then... then I'll do it.

She set off at an easy lope, having circled through this section of the forest repeatedly. It was like the black halls of Charybdis, only more difficult, and there was a tiny crooked not-smile on her face as she made her way toward the disturbance.

On the edge of a clearing she slowed, slipping between the shadows and circling as she squinted at the figure standing there. It was hard to distinguish between where the pale clothes ended and the pale face began, but she knew those eyes, and that stance, and it was Wick there, waiting for her.

Kat hid, but couldn't stop herself from speaking.

"Did you come to say goodbye?"

She turned to face in the general direction of the voice, but it was too dark for her to make anyone out. She swallowed and leaned against the horse's shoulder, slipping her hands behind her back, one holding the butt of the pistol and the other gripping the holster.

"I came out here because Jor told me you were missing. I didn't even notice you were gone." Wick smirked at the darkness. "He cares. I can't imagine why." She left the horse and began walking to the center of the clearing. "Maybe you fooled him into seeing you like I used to see you, Kat, and that really is a shame. I hate it when he gets disappointed." She reached the center of the clearing and scanned the black trees ahead of her.

"So here you are, out in the woods, waiting for someone to prove they care enough to fetch you. You poor thing," she said in a tauntingly pitying voice, "so alone, so without hope." Her face hardened. "When did you get so fucking pathetic, Katera? Was it after you killed Daddy? Was that too much for your fragile psyche to take?"

She pulled the pistol out of the holster and held it at her side as she kept talking, muzzle to the ground. "You used to have a spine, Kat. You used to burn. You come to my house filthy and starving, and I let you in, I let you stay," she said with a tiny, empty grin, "even though you got me into trouble with my husband. I let you destroy my property and upset my lover, and I haven't asked anything of you, because you haven't got anything I want. So I'm not going to ask you to come back. I'm just here to tell you what I think of you, just in case I don't get another chance." She gripped the pistol tighter and glared up into the trees. "You're a coward, Kat."

"You're a coward, Kat."

They weren't all lies.

"Am not," Kat breathed silently to herself, but it was true and she knew it was true. She huddled down more into the dark, wishing for nothing more than to fade away... until Wick screamed at her.

"A spineless, selfish fucking COWARD!" And at that Kat was on her feet again, her face darkening in time with Wick's words, until at the last, when she dared to speak of her son. It may have been the only thing able to hurt Kat deep enough to reach past her apathy and touch something painful, but painful it was, something not felt since a blade on her cheek or darts in his chest, and her eyes turned yellow.

You won't kill me; I'll kill you! I'll kill everyone, and no one will stop me! They're MINE! Mine, and I'll get them back. I'll kill you!

She materialized into the clearing with a dash and a leap that took her entirely off the ground, and Wick had time to whip around and meet her furious gaze before Kat was upon her.

The impact blurried her eyes, made her pause and blink so that there was time for Wick to do it again, harder, and then again, enough that Kat made a noise she wasn't sure was pain. Her view of the night shrank and expanded and had funny dancing men around the edges, and she shook her head to clear it. It took a moment, but eventually things refocused, and she sat crouched on all floors and blinking curiously at her sister just a few feet away.

Wick was bleeding. Kat blinked again and then smiled, a smile that grew from something that wasn't humor, but that covered her face and lit her eyes nonetheless. Her breathing quickened, and she shifted a little, readying herself to pounce.

Not done yet, sister, I'm not done yet.

Arms and legs got in her way this time when she lashed out, but she saw the pistol in time and knocked it aside, and then she could focus on only one thing.

Kat took less time to recover this time, and Wick met her in a crouch, throwing her shoulder into Kat's stomach as the older girl pounced on her, but she didn't have enough strength to do more than throw her back a few paces, and Kat came right back for more.

It had been a long time since Wick had been in a fight - a real fight - and a long time since she'd trained for anything like it, but she wasn't going to run, and that didn't leave her any other options. She hurt Kat when she could, and threw her off when the chance presented itself, but she knew how to inflict pain, not proper damage, and Kat was taking her skin off in little pieces. Wick's style of combat had been centered around the idea that pain would make the other person stop, but here it was almost as if the opposite were true. Kat's hisses grew louder as Wick slammed into the same pressure points again and again, but Wick could no longer tell if they were unhappy hisses, and it was rapidly becoming apparent that Wick was going to tire out long before her houseguest.

The next time she threw Kat off she followed and leapt on her, fastening her fingers into Kat's throat in an attempt to reach the carotid and knock her out, but Kat flipped them easily and she was forced to fall back on the pain lock to keep Kat off her face.

They fought; Wick to get free, and Kat like an animal possessed. It was not an easy fight. It was not a clean fight. There was blood everywhere, and someone was hissing, loud and rasping and furious, and it was Kat. The struggle hurt them equally, both of them doing their best to inflict pain upon the other, but Kat was seemingly oblivious.

It wasn't that it didn't hurt. It was only that it did, and she wanted more. The pain, like her greed, made her feel more alive, and Kat could not get enough.

Hurt me, sister. Hurt me so that I can forget why I hurt...

And Wick did. Over and over again, and Kat continued to come back for more, continued to fight. She was desperate in her need, desperate to feel something other than apathy, and the longer they fought, the less she despaired. Each blow took that darkness from her, replaced it instead with a kind of happiness she'd never felt with Mode, and as Wick wrapped her hands around her throat, Kat couldn't remember why she'd wanted to die.

I can still fight. I can still live... and I will, I'll live for you...

A voice brought her back to herself, and she looked down into her sister's eyes. "Are... you... finished?" the other girl asked, still with painful fingers in her throat, and Kat stopped struggling. When Wick dug into her skin more, Kat batted her hands away, but did not attack. Instead she stayed there, crouched over Wick, and stared down at her sister with a sudden surge of love that filled her eyes and made the vicious smile disappear from her face.

The bark was rough against the scratches on her shoulder. The smell of the forest and her own blood made her feel slightly ill, and she tried to stretch her leg muscles and nearly lost her balance, but after a few seconds she felt ready to move on her own.

Kat was still sitting on the ground, watching her with a clarity of expression she hadn't seen on her since Kat had arrived. Beyond her, the horse was still tethered, though he regarded her with more than a little trepidation as she made her way slowly across the clearing, refusing to give into discomfort and hobble. Just the same, when she reached him she was grateful to be able to lean against him, and the smell of the horse made her feel a little less nauseous. She had no idea how she could mount in her current state, and so she just stayed there and began to calm down.

You're meaner than Jordan, Katera. But why did I do it for you? A very old memory she hadn't often accessed came up, the memory of Kat and that idiot Daniels in the hallway, fighting, and how much Kat had reminded her of Jor, and of Mode. She watched Kat on the grass watching her and narrowed her eyes slightly. Wick was confident that she could predict almost anyone but herself, and rather than think any more deeply about what had just happened and what it might mean, she sighed and relaxed her features.

Don't go without me, not after that.

Perhaps it was loneliness, this possession she was feeling, or perhaps it was love, but Kat would not have understood it either way, and didn't want to. It was enough that Wick had brought her back to herself, had given her life back as nothing else could have done, and Kat recognized only that she could not bear to lose it again. But she stayed there, silent and watchful, waiting, and eventually Wick did not leave but instead turned around, and met her eyes.

"Are you coming?"

In an instant Kat's face brightened, and just as quickly it was gone, but she continued to feel calm and peaceful and strangely, oddly happy as she slowly got to her feet. Standing, everything hurt more than it had before, and she swayed a little, but managed to steady herself and finally tear her gaze away from Wick. It fell a few feet away, on the pistol in the dirt, and Kat moved to pick it up carefully and then walked to Wick, offering the weapon without a word.

Kat didn't move.

"Come on, Kat," Wick told her, offering a hand, and Kat stared at the hand and then at the horse before looking back to Wick. "Get on."

She hesitated, but there was a look to Wick that suggested she would be wise to comply now, and Kat ignored the help and climbed up behind Wick herself. Then the horse appeared to be moving, and with a startled noise she latched herself onto the girl in front of her. Wick tensed, and Kat eyed the bloody back she was clinging to and tried not to hurt her, but still refused to let go.

They rode like that all the way back to the estate, never going faster than a walk, and that suited Kat just fine. A boy came to take the horse from them when they reached the stable, and then Wick set off for the house with Kat still in tow, no longer holding on tightly to her sister but hovering nonetheless. She was reluctant to allow any measure of space between them, for fear Wick might disappear, and like a shadow she followed her through the hallways and to her room.

Wick stepped inside, and Kat paused, but after a moment of looking at the dark room ahead followed suit, and shut the door behind her. Already Wick was in the bathroom, the sound of running water blanketing any other noises, and Kat perched herself on the edge of the bed and sat there patiently, waiting.

"I've had worse," she said wryly, and stepped into the walk-in closet so she could lose the towel and search for something that wouldn't hurt. Every little movement hurt, and she finally gave up on actual clothing and pulled a long sleeved robe from its hanger. It reached almost to her feet and covered her arms, and it was made of some smooth blend of fabrics that didn't cling; for now it was the best she could do.

Wick returned the smile, and Kat slid off the bed and stepped toward her. She wasn't sure what she was going to do until she did it, but her hand moved on its own, and Wick didn't pull away when Kat touched her arm. The sleeve moved under her touch, and Kat peered more closely at the wounds she'd left, a curious, intense sort of concentration on her face.

She inquired of Frederick, and he was awake enough to tell her that sir had withdrawn into his bedroom and not come out for some time. There were no indications from any of the other servants that he'd left, and so Wick made her way to his suite. The door was unlocked, and she turned the heavy glass knob as quietly as possible and slipped inside.

The bed curtains were pulled, and she brushed them aside with one arm and climbed onto the unstable surface. Jor still liked waterbeds, and it made it impossible for her to make progress without alerting him to her presence, but she crept up to the large, warm mass and slipped under the covers so she could put her arms around him. His skin was smooth and warm, and she kissed the back of his neck and stroked his stomach.

He huffed about his suite for quite awhile, still too shocked from having her pistol in his face to be properly furious about it, but still too furious to understand what had happened. It was as if she hadn't cared until he had, and he couldn't figure out why that would drive her to do such a thing... but there were quite a few things about Wick that Jor had never been able to figure out, and he eventually gave this up as just another one of them.

It didn't matter. She had pulled a gun on him, and then left to find Kat. Or left with Kat. That thought brought on a multitude of other thoughts, none of them reasonable, and he spent another hour or two pacing along the balcony, staring out into the dark as if he could see through the trees.

What were they doing?

Once he finally got past the worst part of feeling sorry for himself, he began to worry. It had been hours. Kat had left under less than reassuring circumstances, and suddenly Jor could think of nothing but what could be going wrong. What if she were dead? What if she were alive? That might be worse than anything else, and he felt the scratches on his cheek and remembered the gun and tried not to imagine what could be happening out there. Still, after all the time they'd spent together, he had concern only for one.

It's Wick. She'll be alright.

Eventually pacing grew more tiresome than anger had been, and he retreated to his bed. He'd wait here, until she returned, and then he'd go see her. She'd be fine. Wick was always able to take care of herself, his internal voice said with complete and utter disregard for all the times she hadn't, and Jor settled into his pillow and stared at the ceiling and told himself it'd only be a moment until she came back.

Of course, he fell asleep.

He didn't realize that he'd fallen asleep until she woke him, and only then because he felt hands on his stomach and lips on the back of his neck. His eyes opened sleepily in the dark and he did nothing for a moment, before realization came full circle and he sat up abruptly, looking about the room wildly before glancing down to see her laying beside him. Even in the gloom he could see the same wounds on her face that were still on his, and he leaned over and began to search her roughly, more from concern than anger.

Kat did this...

They were both quiet for a few moments.

He hesitated, unsure of what her reaction was going to be next, not certain whether she was angry or not, but she settled against him and he began to relax. When she pushed him back into the bed, he let her, and held her gently, doing his best not to hurt her more.

What right do I have to be angry?

It was quiet, and she said more things, but they were about Kat and Jor really didn't care. It was enough that she was here with him, and he closed his eyes and ran his fingers through her hair. "Are you alright?" her voice came from somewhere on his chest, and he smiled a little to himself and kissed the crown of her head.

"Yes."

Thank you, Jor. Maybe...maybe now it'll be better between us. She wondered briefly what "better" was. They'd never had a relationahip free of conflict, and Wick wasn't sure exactly how such a thing would work. Just the same, she was more than willing to give it a try.

Eventually his breath took on the slow, steady rhythm of deep sleep. She waited a few minutes after and then gently pulled herself free. She slid off the bed, disturbing it as little as possible. The door was heavy enough not to squeak, and she stepped out into the dark hallway and closed it behind her.

Her own rooms were empty, but the light was on in the bedroom next door. She hesitated and then entered her suite, but left her outer door unlocked and the bedroom door slightly open, turned the lights out and went to bed. A while later she heard the door to the outer rooms open, and then a short time after heard it close, but there was no more sound.

She pushed back the blankets and slipped through the canopy to cross the cold wooden floor. She pulled the door to her sitting room open a little more and peeked.

It was in shambles, her room, full of furniture broken in her previous rage. She made a token attempt to pick things up, but had neither the energy nor the patience to do more than clear a path from the door to her bed, and it was there she sat and waited.

Wick did not come.

Kat was beginning to become restless and ready to search for Wick herself when footsteps sounded in the hallway, and she fell silent. They didn't approach her door, but went into the adjacent bedroom, and Kat was out of bed in an instant. Wick. She snuck to the door and out into the hallway with a desire for stealth that even she couldn't explain, but it seemed vitally important to be silent, and it wasn't until she paused outside of Wick's bedroom door that it occurred to her that her sister might not want to see her.

They had parted just an hour or two earlier on amiable terms, but Kat could see only the bloody lines she'd drawn all over her sister when she tried to talk herself into entering. This was ridiculous. Wick obviously wanted to be alone, else she would have come and seen her... but Kat was unwilling to leave. For some reason she couldn't bear to be alone, even if it was just next door, and with this thought in mind she sank down beside the doorway and hugged her knees to her chest to wait.

I'll just stay here for a little bit. She doesn't have to know I'm here.

Then Wick appeared.

They blinked at one another, Wick in surprise and Kat with some measure of guilt, but neither said a word. Then Wick made a gesture and went back into her room, and Kat peeked around the doorjamb and watched the other girl climb into bed before she finally got to her feet.

It was almost funny, watching her with this uncharacteristic skittishness as she slowly edged into the room and crept toward the bed. It took several unsuccessful attempts before she was close enough to touch the bedpost, and another nervous retreat until she finally got up the courage to crawl onto the bed.

She shifted, but Kat didn't move. It was like she was still hiding outside the door, waiting for an invitation. Wick liked Jor for the same reason they'd had such a turbulent relationship; Jor didn't mind taking without asking, and Kat's subservience was irritating her. If she hadn't wanted company, she could have closed the door in Kat's face.

Instead, she reached down and grabbed Kat's arm with her left hand. Muscles played under her fingers, but she pulled lightly anyway and, surprisingly, Kat came up. There was an awkward moment where neither seemed to know how to lay, but Wick's bed was more than sufficient to allow them space and eventually they lay about a foot apart, facing each other. Wick could only barely see Kat in the dark, but the small amount of light in the room caught in her sister's eyes, and Wick bit the inside of her lip briefly.

I should have sent her back to her room.

I miss you. I miss this, from you most of all, but right now, from anyone. Forgive me.

Slowly, tentatively, she moved closer. Wick made no indication that she noticed, and it was enough for Kat to pretend that neither of them noticed. It wasn't until her bare skin brushed Wick's that her sister opened her eyes, and Kat stared into pale, pale blue and closed her own again the look.

Once she could no longer see it became comforting, rather than uncomfortable, and she pressed closer, her cheek resting against Wick's shoulder. There was silence until an arm came up to coil around Kat's back, and Kat let out a breath she didn't know she'd been holding and did something she hadn't done since Jacks was taken from her.

She purred.

The sound rumbled in her throat and chest and soothed her more than anything else, and her fingers tightened into the sheets.

Her arm moved up and encircled her sister much as she had embraced Jor earlier that evening, and Kat sighed and began to make a low, rumbling noise in her throat. Wick had never owned any pets, had never, in fact, seen a cat in person, but she knew a purr when she heard it.

The sharp-nailed fingers tightened into the sheets near Wick's face, and it took conscious thought not to pull away; Kat had already done enough damage to her skin tonight. The fear of being injured chased a good deal of her sleepiness away, and she tightened her arm to draw herself closer, daring herself to show that she was afraid and to push away.

I... I remember the last time you... She dug her nails into the palms of her hands to calm herself down, but her memory insisted on betraying her with flashes of the hallway, of blood in her mouth, of those blue eyes so close to hers. It was not the memory of the kiss, however, that made her press closer to Wick, that brought her hands down to clutch at her sister's back instead of the sheets.

Last time you ran away. Please... please don't run away...

She clung like that to Wick and couldn't purr again, couldn't do anything but breathe shallowly and concentrate fiercely on keeping her eyes shut. This was not the body she was used to holding onto while she slept, but for some inexplicable reason it felt familiar, as if she were holding onto herself, and she pressed her mouth against Wick's shoulder until the points of her teeth dug cruely into her lips.

I remember what I thought about you then, Kat. You were like Jordan and your Nathan, mixed together. One of them wanted to protect me, and the other wanted to kill me...and so did you, sister. What do you want now?

Kat's lips contacted her bare shoulder as she was drawn in, and Wick's breath turned soft and light and quiet. Sensation from her confused nerve endings began to pour in some very disturbing information, and she fought for control over something she didn't even really understand. That made her angry, and the anger helped to dull her senses enough for her to take stock of her situation.

So? she demanded of herself. What does it matter? And another voice asked, What does what matter?

Lips pressed against her throat, and Kat bit her lip sharply and waited, waited for the sting of teeth into her skin, but it never came. Instead it was her own teeth that drew blood, and as the little red line wove its way down her chin she made a sound from low in her throat, somewhere between a growl and a sob.

What am I doing?

She pulled away abruptly and sat up, her breathing ragged and tortured and her eyes rapidly filling with tears. It wasn't that this felt wrong, that it was so evil of her to seek comfort from Wick. It was only that it seemed so... so right, so reassuring and warm and different but all the same as the nights she'd spent in Mode's arms. Kat turned her face away so that her sister couldn't see her eyes, couldn't see the longing in her expression, because it was too much for her and she couldn't admit how weak she really was, to need security and safety.

Wick said nothing, and Kat was grateful. Being ignored would have bothered her any other time but this, but for now it allowed her to wrestle herself under control again, and Wick never made a sound. When she finally felt stable she took a deep, ragged breath, let it out slowly and looked up at the ceiling she couldn't even see in the dark.

"Do you think he's really alive, Wick?"

Kat's voice barely carried to her, and Wick blinked at the mane of red curls. All human kindness demanded that she say of course, yes, what a silly question, but Wick didn't lie to herself, and she wouldn't lie to her sister - not when it mattered.

Kat smiled up into the dark that held no answers, and it was an odd expression, almost not like a smile at all. It twisted the corners of her mouth and made her appear older, sadder, but it was deeper than that, and she eventually abandoned the smile. Wick was sitting up behind her when she turned around, and Kat just shook her head and settled down into the pillows beside her sister.

Eventually she spoke, in a real voice this time, a voice that refused to be soft and uncertain. "Yes," she said. "We will."

The days passed differently than they had the first time; not better, not worse, but more quickly, as if she'd learned that suffering could be done in a timely manner. It did not hurt any less-- if anything, it hurt more, because she had lost two very precious parts of her life, rather than just one-- but she was better at accepting it. And despite the pain, she found that weeks went by, the months blurring before her eyes, and soon enough she was marking away days on her calendar, still waiting for word from Owen, still waiting to learn if her husband was alive.

Jor's voice interrupted her reverie, and Kat flipped the little calendar over and turned around to face him.

"Ho, Kat."

"Ho, Jor." She capped with pen with a snap and tossed it into the desk drawer. "What's going on?"

His face lit up with a look she knew very well by now, and Kat found herself smiling without an effort. If there was one thing she could say about Jor, it was that he could always make her smile. He was often annoying, regularly ill-tempered, and usually a pain in the ass, but he was a friend in a way that no one else would understand, and he returned her smile with one of his own. "Well?"

"Lucy made pie. There's apple, and a lemon one without meringue, just for you, and she said they were for dinner tonight but she's out shopping with Clara and there's no one in the kitchen, and you know what that means."

Kat was out the door and following him down the hallway in an instant. "I hate meringue."

They were seated on the floor in a deserted area of the kitchen, busily shoveling pie, when there was a clatter of footsteps on the tile floor and a very breathless voice. "Kat?"

Kat's eyes widened in time with Jor's, and they swallowed hastily and started trying to hide the remains of their theft. They made enough noise that Wick noticed, and Jor had just shoved half an apple pie behind his back when Wick almost flew into their corner, her eyes just as wide and an expression on her face that frightened Kat for a reason she couldn't explain.

Oh... oh, no. No.

"He's de--" she started to say, but Wick interrupted. "There's a call for you."

Kat was on her feet in an instant, and gone just a moment after that.

He's alive.

"Kat?" This from Wick, and Kat looked up at her sister with an unreadable placidity before blinking. "Oh, right. You need to see whatever he's sent us." Her voice was inflectionless and casual, but there was an effort to her careful movements as she slid out of the way, let Wick take over at the terminal. "I'll let you work."

And with that same unnatural calm she turned and walked quietly from the room, leaving Wick to deal with the details, for Kat had no use for them. There was only one thing that mattered, and she'd already heard it from Owen.

He's alive.

Her blank expression disappeared the moment the door to her own room closed, and Kat slumped against the wall and slid down to the floor, left the calm behind and let the storm take over.

Oh God, Mode, you're alive, you're alive, I... I thought he would tell me this was all for nothing. Tears she had held back before streamed down her face now, blinding her, choking her, and she sobbed as her son had, unrestrained and piteous. And he's okay too, Jacks is okay... it'll all be alright now, we can all be together. All I have to do is find you, then you'll make it all better...

She held onto that thought and cried, cried her one year, her three months, her nine days worth of tears, and when she was dry and hollow and strangely calm again, she got her to feet and went straight back to Wick.

The other woman glanced up when she entered, and Kat met her gaze with this new, frightening determination in her own.

"First the good news. They've got him in the adult wards, but on one of the upper levels. He's seen at least once a week by one of his attending physicians, and only one of them lives on premises. That means the other two have to go through security to get to him. We might be able to use that." She tapped a few keys. "Owen sent us a layout of the place. I know you're...familiar with Charybdis, but they've added some new structures. It's a lot bigger now. They're keeping him in what used to be doctors' quarters - stripped down, of course, but they're bigger than some of the other cells."

The corners of her eyes narrowed imperceptibly, but Wick was looking away, and didn't notice. Kat made certain that her voice would be steady before she spoke, and it was. There was no change in her tone.

"I know how to remove them."

And how to wear them. But that doesn't matter. None of this matters. All I need to know is how to get inside.

That last she spoke aloud, and this time Wick did look at her. It was a heavy look, one that seemed to measure her and analyze her and pity her all at once, and Kat made no indication that it bothered her. Wick didn't know. Charybdis had changed, everything always changed, but this deathly serenity refused to be bothered by these details, and Wick didn't understand what Kat did.

I will do anything to get him back.

The structure itself was located in the middle of some very empty territory in Nebraska. The ground was flat and empty for miles around it. There were no buildings, trees or rock formations to provide cover, just miles and miles of open ground that froze hard in the winter and offered no shade in the summer. An escaped prisoner would have to be able to run a decent marathon to make it back to civilization before he died of hunger, thirst or exposure, but only if he could outrun the guards first.

Charybdis had been constructed to keep people inside, but the architectural differences between a keep and a prison were were slight enough to make it a formidable challenge. The outer walls were twelve feet thick, twice as high and topped with barbed wire and guards. There weren't any artillery pieces - this was a hospital, of course - but there was an electrocuted wire mesh on both sides of the wall and a serious lack of humor on behalf of the security team. Charybdis was designed to subdue, not to kill. None of the tranquilizer rifles the guards carried were technically lethal, and the wire mesh just shocked you into submission for the orderlies to come and collect you.

Still, not the friendliest of places.

Like any institution, it required regular shipments of supplies. The transports were brought in to a heavily guarded area and unloaded under close surveillance. The supplies were then examined and dispersed as necessary into the facility, and the transports departed (after inspection). There were guard rotations, but only a third of the guard was replaced at any one time. There were cleaning crews, but there was a six month interview process and background check to qualify for any position inside. Charybdis employed its own plumbers, carpenters, masons and technicians; almost everything was done in-house.

Saving him is one thing. Getting to him is another.

Now she was rethinking her previous disregard for an actual plan, and a little uncertainty made itself known. Finding him once they got inside was a task that Kat considered herself capable of handling. But how were they going to get through those gates?

"I don't know," she said softly, her voice less sure than before. She searched for something else to say, something that would reassure herself, and came up with nothing. "I didn't even know it was in Nebraska."

Frustration tripped her words toward the end, and the corners of her lips turned downward violently. She wanted to scream and rave and rant about the injustice of it all, of finally knowing where he was but being able to reach him, but she couldn't. All she could do was stand there and stare at the little blue lines that separated him from her, and her calm returned, though not the same as before.

"I don't know," she said again, and then fell silent.

It was just after one o'clock in the morning. Kat was fast asleep on her bed, feet on the pillows and head pillowed on her arms. She insisted on being present when Wick was working on the plan, though most of the work had been narrowing down what wouldn't work. Namely everything.

Sapping was out of the question; there was no cover and they didn't have the manpower or the freedom to hire a contractor to do the digging. Setting a charge on the wall might have provided some distraction, but there wasn't any one area where they could do a lot of damage - they might make a very large hole in the wall, but it would bring every uninjured guard down on the them. Besides, the guards were only guards; this was an extraction, not an attack, and Wick didn't want to kill anyone they didn't have to.

That thought made her smile, though it was a ver small, sad smile. She'd never thought of herself as the empathetic type, but guards were no longer faceless to her. Jor was a guard.

In fact, that particular aspect of Jordan had been occupying her mind more and more as possible solutions were reduced and reduced again. Wick was not a selfless person; the possibility of Jordan was the least attractive to her of all the others she had started with, but now it appeared to be the only one left.

She left Kat sleeping in her room and walked the corridor into the next wing.

Jor's door was unlocked, as always, and as always when she came to see him, he woke enough to put his arms around her and draw her close. The blankets had left him very warm to the touch, and she lay against the length of him and kissed his cheek softly. He nuzzled her throat and she closed her eyes and put her arms around him for a moment before pushing him away gently.

"Jor?"

"You need to get some rest, spark," he whispered, tracing the dark circles under her eyes. "You've been doing all this for Kat, and doing nothing for yourself. Look." Jor slid a hand across her stomach and frowned. "You're even getting thinner."

She didn't like that; a look passed through her eyes that made him withdraw, and he let both his hand and the topic drop. They had all made sacrifices in the past months, trying to take care of Kat, trying to find Mode. He just hated to see her sacrificing anything.

"But someone inside could get us in," she said slowly, looking away and down so she wouldn't have to read his expression. "Charybdis has a pretty heavy defense budget. They have the best, and they have a whole segment of guards from the IF." She finally looked at him, grateful for the dark. She could only see the lines of his face, the glimmer of his eyes; his reaction was still unreadable. "I could get you in there, Jordan, or Owen could. But you'd have to go before us by at least a month or two, and then find your own way onto the inspection detail. We can get Kat in in a box and stored in a quiet area. You wouldn't have to do anything but wave the package through, and I'm sure that happens enough for you to get away with it. You let it pass and you go on about your business and we make sure you're off shift before Kat breaks out."

Neither of them touched as she talked through her idea, and when she was done Jor pulled away to sit on the edge of the bed. It was cold this way, his bare feet on the floor and the blankets discarded behind him, but it helped him think. Being close to her always made him want to acquiese without a thought, and this decision required more than that, needed more than just a yes or no.

He stared out the window at the dark and the forest, and considered her request. It was a good plan, he knew, probably the only plan they had that might possibly work. If he hadn't listened to all the ideas she'd discarded and seen the difficulty of entering Charybdis, he might have said no, but he knew what she'd been going through to try to help Kat. If Wick said it would work, then Jor believed it would work.

And it wasn't only that he believed her. He trusted her.

That thought was enough to make him turn around again to face her, though he didn't close the distance between them. She was watching him, and he watched her back, looking over the smudges under her eyes and the lines around her mouth, and he knew he would do it, if only so that she would stop looking like that.

For you, because you care for Kat so much that you'd do all this. And for Kat. For her, because I understand how desperate she is to get Mode back. She'd do anything for him, just as I'd do anything for you. Just as I'd do this for you.

"No," she said quietly. "We'll be fine. I asked Owen to make the arrangements to transfer you next month." She hung her head and tried to unsuccessfully to shake the cold feeling in her stomach, and then climbed into his lap so he could hold her. "We'll talk about the details tomorrow, ok?" He nodded, grinning down at her, and she rested her head on his shoulder, closed her eyes again and slipped her arms around him to hug him tightly.

There was concern in her gaze, worry and anxiety, and it made him grin wryly. "I'll be alright, spark. I can take care of myself. But I'll be extra careful, okay? Trust me?" She nodded, and Jor cupped her face in his hands and kissed her lightly. "You have to be more careful than I do; you have Kat to watch. She might be more dangerous than the guards." That made his lips turn down at the corners, and he looked at her a little more closely. "You be very careful. I don't want anything to happen to you," he whispered, drawing her to him and kissing her more deeply. "You have to be here when I come back..."

There was something sweet and desperate as they made love this time, something driven by the coming separation and the unspoken fears that it would be permanent. Neither of them dared to think it, but it hung there between them, the promises they had made never to leave again. Jor was careful with her, unusually tender in his love, and Wick left marks on his throat that burned.

When she came up from her laboratory in the afternoons, Kat was always immediately at her side, demanding to know what new progress Wick had made on the plan to get them inside. She endured the constant barrage for new information, new proof of industry, but Wick was not by nature stoic, and more than once she ended up in a screaming match with her sister, which always resulted in Kat storming away and Wick furiously throwing herself into the planning effort so she'd have something to take with her as a peace offering later on.

Jor saw and understood, and he did what he could to distract Katera. They wrestled and ate and played while Wick worked, and in the rare and precious silence of her room Wick assembled the network of actions that would get them inside and out safely, cause as little disruption as possible and end with all of them on the right side of the Institute walls.

The night before Jor left Wick spent no time on the plan and no time with her sister. She locked herself and her husband into the bedroom of the master suite with a decent amount of food. He slept eventually, pleasantly exhausted, but though she was equally tired she kept herself awake so she could watch him sleep. She didn't sleep herself until after the transfer unit had come to collect him. It was the point of commitment; after this, it would be much harder to stop the sequence of events without risking discovery, and Wick slept fitfully and woke up lonely, scared and eager to have the thing done with.

Without Jor as a foil, Kat had nothing to keep her from Wick's side, and Wick grew more and more frustrated as the days went on. It was almost a relief when they screamed at each other; it meant that Wick would have some time to herself to do what Kat wanted her to without interference, and it gave Kat time to rework her combat training. Wick knew that Kat needed to feel that she was doing everything she could to get Mode back, and that included standing over her until it was proved to her that her presence was not assisting it. Thus the cycle continued, Kat's muscles got harder and Wick's plan expanded as she got the technical diagrams and layouts she needed to finish the job.

Sometimes she did need Kat's help. Kat had been in the institute for years; there was little about the lower levels that she couldn't explain. Terrence wasn't in the lower levels, but Wick could infer things that weren't in her diagrams from some of Kat's information. Last night Wick had needed information on the northeast shipping bay, and while she had the schematics and the guard postings from Owen, there were structural details like ledges that weren't in the diagrams that Kat was able to provide.

She was angry most of the time these days. When she woke up, when she ate breakfast, when she ran outside, tearing through the woods like an animal possessed, stumbling and cursing and crying furiously at the trees. She was angry when she managed to drag herself back at night, limping and bleeding, her voice hoarse from screaming at the sky, accusing it of stealing everything from her. She was angry when she lay in bed, staring up at the ceiling, one solitary figure in a giant bed when there should have been someone holding her as she slept. She rarely slept.

If she'd cared to think about it, she would have discovered that the only time she wasn't angry was when she was sleeping. But as she couldn't sleep, couldn't let go enough to rest, she didn't care to think about it.

It consumed her, this task she had undertaken, all the thoughts of him eating away at the happiness they had built together. She grew thinner, like she had been when she'd first arrived, her face hollow and her eyes burning, two green flames in their rings of bruises. She grew stronger, too, at the same time, the same wiry muscles she'd had when she was sixteen and trying to kill the world.

She held onto her anger, and it drove her. She'd forgotten all that the dark hallways of Charybdis had taught her years ago, and like a blade gone dull it took work, a careful, painful rasp across her heart over and over again to bring back the edge. She tested the newfound sharpness against Wick, using the weapon of words to practice her feints and jabs and parries. She tested the newfound sharpness against Jor, using the weapon of fists to relearn the skills of the hunt. And last, she tested the sharpness against herself, torturing her own thoughts with horrible possibilities, imagining him injured and tortured and dead, all to fuel her determination, to make herself focus.

And Kat was focused. She was focused so much that she couldn't care about anyone else. She followed Wick constantly, like a shadow, haunting her steps and harassing her endlessly, and when Wick's temper broke and she screamed at her, Kat screamed too. Some part of her understand why, but their battles were just another way to push herself further, to convince herself to fight just one more day, and so she grew to need them as much as she needed Wick's help.

That is why, when she entered Wick's room, she was already angry.

"I didn't think you'd smile now that Jorry's gone," she said snidely, as if her devotion were perfect and flawless and the smile made Wick's love less than her own. "But I guess even I'm wrong sometimes."

She steadied herself, though, and just as quickly the anger reasserted itself and came back swinging. Kat let it hiss in her words instead of showing her hate outright, and she sounded like a snake, sibilant and taunting. "Oh, I don't know about that." A smile spread across her face, but it couldn't even stretch to reach her eyes. "Last time, he didn't seem to mind being away at all. Perhaps this time he'll find something better."

"Any longer and we'll all be dead," Kat said derisively, trying to prod Wick into an attack like one would poke a snake or kick a dog, but it didn't work. There was a strange lack of anything sharp or cruel between them now that Wick had moved away, and Kat's head tilted to the side as she regarded her sister through curious, furious eyes.

How could you just stop? You're supposed to fight back.

"It had better work," she mumbled in a last-ditch effort to incite any sort of reaction, but Wick continued to look at her with that strange serenity, and Kat gave up on understanding it. She glanced down at the terminal again, hoping to focus her attention on that instead, but she couldn't decipher what any of it meant and gave up on that, too.

Wick didn't move when Kat sat down on the bed beside her, nor did she say anything when Kat drew her knees up to her chest and rested her chin on her arms. They sat beside one another in silence for awhile, a minute, maybe, or perhaps longer, and eventually Kat realized that she wasn't angry. That, in turn, made her angry again, but instead of screaming or crying or throwing something, she closed her eyes.

"I hope it's soon," she said, and then didn't say anything more.

She didn't check behind her to see if Kat was following as she walked through the hallways and out the front doors. The night was warm and heavy with moisture, but there weren't enough clouds in the sky to be concerned about rain. She walked slowly along the side of the house and into the orchard she could see from her mother's suite and turned her senses on high. The sweet smell of fruit with the soft loamy scent of rotting leaves underneath it enveloped her, and she leaned against an old pecan and looked up at the moon.

This was it. She could go upstairs and send the message she'd written to Owen, or she could change her mind and ask Jorry to come home. Wick rarely went outside, and even more rarely during the day; it made her feel awake and alive, and she watched the clouds float slowly across the moon and thought of Jorry.

I love you, matchman. You're far more generous than I. I want to be generous like you. I just don't want to have to risk losing you to do it.

But it wasn't her decision any more, and hadn't been since Jorry had left. He'd already made his choice, with full knowledge of the consequences that lay beyond. He was committed. It was her own commitment that was lacking.

Interesting choice of words. Do you really think they're going to let you out if they catch you in there? Look at Kat. You could end up like that for the rest of your life, too busy looking over your shoulder to see straight ahead...and you could end up in there forever. Jorry too.

But I promised. It's already too late to turn around.