It's a cliche, but true nonetheless. People go on with their lives, even have shocks that rock them to their very core, even in light of the destruction of a world and thousands of their friends and families and allies.

Effie and Chee Chee had found everyone a place to sleep, and fed them, and now, the morning after the day Home died, people were waking up and seeking companionship, along with coffee and food.

The modern kitchen in the main hardened building was being utilized and in ones, or twos, or sometimes threes, people began dragging in, some of them still not convinced of their new reality.

Several of the minions were there at the first sign of dawn. Natha and Jordon, the exceptions as they'd worked most of the night helping their bosses deal with the current state of affairs.

So Tommy, Daisy and Reno met at a corner table, all hollow-eyed and pale.  Melly joined them a bit later.  They all got coffee or tea and toyed with their food. Irisa came to join them not much later. Cassidy, she reported, was finally sleeping.

The dining room had similar groupings. People talking quietly, trying to make sense of their new world, wondering if the Refuge would go on, or.. Or what?  And wondering what had happened to Marc who'd disappeared early on.

Not too many were ready to talk about their shock and horror quite yet. Most had had friends and even some had family on Home. Many had left possessions there now lost forever.

Irisa, suddenly jobless, too, sat mindlessly stirring her coffee.

Melly her mind filled with random thoughts finally spoke as if to herself, "I'll never know how it ends, now, never know how it worked."  She could have meant anything, a book, a puzzle, or a project she'd been working on.

Tommy, though, heard it differently.  "Yeah," he said, staring at his tea as if the answer was there.  "All those people...I keep thinking, like...you know....leaving for work yesterday and never going back.  All the things they'd done for the last time, you know?  Never knowing it was the last time."

Irisa thought of all the things that were in her apartment, all the treasures of her lifetime. She couldn't even find words.

Reno, after watching Melly, finally said, "Whoever it was wanted to kill us too. If we hadn't evacuated here... Wars, any wars, are hell."  Then, after a moment, he added, "I think Marc knows who launched those missiles."

"Whoever it was is dead," Tommy said bluntly.

Melly reached for Reno's hand under the table, thinking of the other war he'd fought in.  "Yeah, and now we'll never really know why.  I mean was it all the lizard man stuff or something else?"

"It can't have been, can it?" Daisy answered. "I mean, they launched from Home. So it was one of us."

"One of us,"  they all said it, turning it over in their minds.

Melly went and brought the coffee pot back.  "I think that maybe, doing what they did, makes them not one of us, somehow.  But it doesn't really matter."

They were silent after that for a while, sipping and thinking.  Finally Tommy shared a thought he'd been chewing on for a while.  "I don't think Stephen will ever....I mean that he and Marc couldn't do anything to save them."

Reno nodded. "If they had tried, more missiles would have hit.  Here from the look of the trajectories.  They must have locked onto his launch site and sent them to take us out, the same way we were trying to take their launch site out."

Tommy confirmed it with a nod. "Cal said the same thing.  Plus he told me it wouldn't have mattered anyway.  The missile just made it faster.  it was already breaking apart, from what he could tell.  But I don't think it'll help all that much," he added sadly.

"No," Reno said heavily. "Not with Marc. But maybe it'll help Stephen deal with it."

"I almost didn't come back," Irisa offered quietly. "I ... I thought Cassidy was just ... you know, worrying too much."

Melly grimaced and squeezed Reno's hand.  "I almost didn't listen either, I was...engrossed.  Now..." She let it trail off.

"We're just glad we got both of you back," Daisy said fervently.  "Even if we don't have a job," she added, with a little grin. "Or an office, or even any paperwork to waste time with."

"I bet we're all back to work in a day or two.  In fact I bet Stephen's already planning and Marc too, what they're gonna do to rebuild."  Tommy said.

Daisy and Irisa looked at one another. "Maybe we can find a job," Daisy said.

"In the motor pool?" Reno asked with a grin.

"Hey, I'd be useful," she retorted.

Irisa nodded. "Yes, it would. Me, I dunno."

Melly looked at her thoughtfully.  "I'm thinking, from what I know of Stephen, you'll just be dealing with a different bunch of press guys."

"Well, I wouldn't mind cross-training. If I was only good at something else."  Irisa frowned down at her coffee.

"You probably are.  Or could, as you say, cross-train."  Melly assured her warmly.  "Plus you could always work the teams.  I heard there've been a bunch of call outs lately."

"Yeah, they'll be hurting for team members with no back up," Irisa replied, feeling a little bit more useful.

"Yeah, we probably all ought to offer. Even if we have a job, act as back up for them when they need us," Reno added.

"Sounds like a plan,"  Tommy said.

"So, how about a game of pick-up basketball?" Reno suggested. "There's a court here."

Tommy started to say no and then changed his mind.  "Yeah."

"It's better than sitting here on our asses, moping," Daisy suggested to Tommy. "Let's get some other folks up and about too."

"Yeah," he said.  And they all nodded.  Better than moping.

“How do you grieve for the inhabitants of a planet?” Stephen asked himself as he stared at the rubble of what had once been the House. “How could you even begin to do justice to such a loss?” He didn’t know.

He didn’t know either how you came to terms with being a part of the cause of their death but he knew he was going to have to find a way.  He pushed the thought that he'd wanted Home destroyed someday as far from him as he could.

Stephen leaned against a pile of rubble and looked out across the valley towards the Compound, also a rubble heap and pictured in his mind how it had looked just yesterday. It seemed odd to him, and maybe it was trick of his mind protecting him, but he seemed more concerned with the destruction here than he did with the loss of Home. Maybe it was because there was something he could do here.

He’d lain awake all night last night, holding Doni who’d cried herself to sleep in his arms, asking himself what next. He’d held his attention there and kept it away from the abyss that the reality of the loss of all those lives…lost forever…was for him. To look directly at it, to fully experience the fact of their mortality, to face the forever-ness of it head on was like looking into a bottomless pit and every time he tried he got mental and emotional vertigo.

The loss throbbed with a deep, dull sort of pain around the edges of his awareness, and mingled with it was the feeling of guilt for his role in it, even though he knew objectively guilt didn’t apply here. He wondered what Marc was feeling, how he was coping. He thought that just maybe whatever else anyone was feeling along with the shared sense of devastating loss and grief, that only Marc would understand the feeling he got every time he edged close to that abyss and stared into the faces of the dead, whom he hadn’t maybe killed outright, but whose deaths he not tried to stop, whose deaths he’d rationally decided couldn’t be prevented.

And maybe that was it, maybe it was that feeling that no matter the reality he hadn’t even tried to save them, he’d just gotten on with saving himself.

So he just kept staring at the rubble, trying to plan for this future, now that the one he’d been building had been swept away. The thought came, scalding him with shame, that maybe it would be a better future, starting from scratch again, the mistakes of the past swept away. Maybe they’d do it better this time around. Maybe he could do it in such a way that it would make looking in the abyss easier.

He didn’t think so and he wasn’t even sure he wanted it to be easier. Making it easier seemed, somehow, the coward’s way out and an act that almost seemed to make light of the loss. All he really knew is that he’d have to do it.

Stephen wasn't exactly sure when Marc had appeared. Just that suddenly he wasn't grieving alone, and wasn't contemplating rebuilding alone. Marc looked different somehow. He'd been worn down from rescuing Lily and Richard's babies, and the additional strain of the quick and deadly war. He'd seen the stress on Marc's face. Now...

Marc sighed, and sank down onto his haunches, feeling the rubble, as if tactile sensation was necessary to help him accept this reality.

Stephen left him alone with his thoughts a long time, letting the silence stretch and lengthen, feeling no need to break it while he sorted through his own thoughts.  Finally he said aloud, "I think this time we should build a village, a real community, not dorms and dining halls unless they're for those who want them.  Build for families and children."

"Good idea. Although we might need dorms for the New Ones, until they acclimate.  And there's no hurry to rebuild. Ocala can house everyone left, so no pressure to do it quickly."

"Then we can do it right this time," Stephen observed.  "And leave no one out."

Marc nodded.  "Get the word out that anyone, talented, awakened, whatever, is welcome to be a part of this."  He was silent for a time, then added, "Dinah's decided to create a House using what she was given by Mac. It would give us a start toward moving out toward the stars. The right way, not as some enclave to separate but rather as a part of  the rest of society and the worlds out there."

"I hoped she might decide to, hoped I...we...could help.  I'd really like that."

"So, I guess we should get back to Ocala and rally the troops," Marc said. "Give them an idea of what you have in mind, and give them a way forward. Something that at least resembles hope."

"Yeah.  But I think I'd like to have a bit more before we do that.  And I'd like to give them all today to...before we move ahead.  Which will give us time to talk with Cassidy and Trevor, and maybe even Dinah."  Stephen took another look around.  Give 'em a bit more than hope that way, maybe even give 'em a job."

"All right. What do you have in mind?" Marc looked around as he heard a flutter of dragon wings. Cola had landed and stuck her nose up close to him. He rubbed it, telling her, "I'm fine."

"Nothing truly specific, beyond wanting to be able to say this is when and that is where.  Plus there's folks like Irisa and Daisy who must be wondering what now at a whole other level."  Stephen told him.

"All right, then, let's have it at your house or mine, and have an informal kind of thing, where we let everyone have a say and make suggestions. Who knows what may come out of it."

"How about mine.  I'll let everyone know, say after lunch...about 2 o'clock."  Stephen said.  Then, "I don't suppose you ever get used to it."

"No," Marc replied. "I'm sorry, Stephen. I'd have spared you if I could have."

"Actually, I was just going to say the same thing to you."

Marc thoroughly surprised Stephen by pulling him into a hug. "Thanks. So, two o'clock, your place. We'll be there."

In the end they met outside on the deck, the group augmented by Cal as well as Tabitha and Eli, looking nothing like themselves.  Cassidy and Trevor were sucking down caffeine at twice the usual rate.  Marc and Dinah arrived last, Dinah having been confirming some facts with her new lawyer that had surprised her a great deal.

Tabitha watched Marc sit down, a smile lurking in her lips, gratitude in her eyes.  She nodded a private hello as he met her eyes.

Marc brushed her mind with a request to speak privately later, once the meeting had ended and she nodded a yes.

Stephen waited until everyone was settled before starting, of necessity, with the subject of Tabitha and Eli and thetransformation.  Then he opened the discussion by outlining the general plan he and Marc had decided upon.  "We're going to start rebuilding immediately, as I'm sure you've guessed.  But from a much different perspective and with a much different goal.  We're going to rebuild as a village or town, with homes...for families and children.  We're going to welcome anyone who wants to come, talented, Awakened, it doesn't matter.  We'll stabilize the New Ones here and help them resume their lives, as they choose."  Then he looked at Dinah.  "And, while we're doing that we're going to move outward towards the rest of the universe, starting with the new House Dinah is building."

There were lots of questions, even more suggestions. Cal pulled out paper and pen and began madly making notes. Cassidy informed everyone that he'd had a rush of volunteers to help with ops teams if he needed backup.  Trevor touched on dragon back security teams for the ops teams until they could determine if the attacks where going to end now or not.  "Ops teams security at this moment is my highest priority."

"I've already had offers from Baz and Clem and a few others of any help we need....people, money or materials."  Stephen said.  "So rebuilding the physical plant won't take too long."

Eli smiled slowly.  "We, our people also, are here to help.  It's time and there's a lot I think we can help with, particularly with the new House."

Dinah, recognizing a cue when she heard it said, "I've been in discussions with a lawyer most of the afternoon about what it means to establish a new House particularly since it will be a House here on Earth.  Earth, it seems, is a protected world."

Marc raised an eyebrow at that.  "And that means what, precisely?"

"It means that Earth, because she supports a sentient people who are considered to be both vulnerable, volatile and valuable requires protection from the unimensional worlds and that the unimensional worlds would probably benefit from protection from us."  Dinah paused and glanced at Tabitha and Eli.  "Earth was officially granted this status about 100 years ago.  The Old Ones have been the liaison between Earth and the unimensional worlds since centuries before that..a gentleman named Timothy, isn't it?

Tabitha nodded, her eyes twinkling.  "Yes."

"To officially establish the House here because of that I have to establish the equivalent of an embassy on a unimensional world.  Then I have to develop a plan for moving Earth from where she is now, to a point where she can apply for membership in the unimensional worlds.  The crux of that is total integration...an open society for all persons living here, regardless of gifts, attributes, whatever."  She looked at Stephen and Marc.  "Sounds like your kind of problem, guys."

Marc exchanged a look with Stephen, but offered nothing aloud, deciding to let Stephen field that one.

"An open society?" Stephen asked.

"Yes," Dinah said.  What it means it that folks like us or Clem or whoever would be able to live openly as gifted or talented without worry and that the non-gifted or non-talented would in no way be penalized for that.  It's sort of the ultimate in equal opportunity living."  She gathered her thoughts together.  "Lantana Mazronni, the lawyer Carmine recommended explained to me that this is actually the preferred method."

Tabitha elaborated.  "A House is something akin to a tribe or clan group, but not necessarily based on blood ties.  A new House like this is expected to be composed of a cross section of the population of the planet or society from which it arises.  On a protected world the new House becomes the paradigm for, in this case, integration across society as a whole.  On other protected worlds the problem may be different, but the House is expected to solve it, first as a House and then moving the solution outward, into the culture.  As well, the House becomes the vanguard of the opening of the planet to unimensional society, encountering and solving those problems of integration that arise from living and working within a universe."

"So the idea is to recruit all manner of humans to become, what, clan, guild, House members?" Trevor asked.

"In this case a House."  Eli said.  "A House such as Dinah's is a trading House, an interstellar trading House, hence a lot like a multi-national corporation in some senses that has to fit in and get along wherever they are.  But it's also like a clan in others in that while the assets are held by Dinah and they work for her it's also a family and community group and she provides a number of things to them plus there is profit sharing...like it used to be in say, Scotland...the laird, or landowner, provided protection and services such a assizes or security to those who worked the land he owned.  In many cases he also supplied their housing and food, particularly for the warriors and their family's.  In return they fought for him or worked the land.  But they weren't serfs.  They were considered almost like family."

Dinah nodded.  "It took me a while to get it.  And the point here is that the members of the House, either by blood, marriage or inweaving, should by some reasonable point in time be representative of the sentient life on Earth...racially, sexually, giftedness...whatever.  But membership is voluntary...I can invite or someone may petition."

"Is the House going to be completely separate from the Refuge? I mean, if you are one can you be the other as well, or not?" Trevor asked.

Dinah nodded.  "Neither is dependent upon the other.  I'm hoping Stephen will allow the building here for obvious reasons, but being a player in his game doesn't mean you have play in mine as well, or vice versa."

Stephen grinned.  "You gonna pay rent?"

"We can trade." Dinah told him.  "I get the space, you get the dragons."

There were some chuckles over that.

"So," Marc said, bringing himself back from whatever time and space his mind had been in, "the Refuge becomes a gateway."

"Yes," Dinah said, "but even more than that.  It becomes an embassy, or go between, between the unimensional worlds and Earth, at the level of state to state relationships.  We take over, working with a monitor, Timothy's role."

"Timothy is what?" Trevor asked. "I mean, who does he represent?"

"He represents Earth, in effect, in matters related to Earth's or her inhabitants relationship with the rest of the worlds."  Dinah gestured helplessly.  "It's like and unlike being a delegate to the UN."

"Ah," Trevor replied. "That I understand.  All too well."

Dinah looked around.  "So, the real question is two fold.  Does this fit with the future of the Refuge, with the direction you all are considering and if it does do you want a role and if so what sort?"

"Absent commentary to the contrary, "Stephen said, "I would say the answer to the first is yes.  And, from my perspective so's the answer to the second.  But it's not just me."

Marc's eyes met Dinah's. He nodded to her and said aloud, "We can make it work."

Trevor grinned. "Beyond my pay grade. Thankfully."

"Actually not really."  Dinah said smiling.  "But I understand.

Cassidy and Cal both indicated they were in.

Dinah moved her attention on to Tabitha and Eli.  "And you?"

"Of course." Eli said, speaking for them both.

Stephen looked around.  "Cal," he said, "If we had the manpower, and the materials, could you and Eli, together, raise the village in a day?  A sort of barn raising, but on a larger scale?"

Cal got thoughtful for a while.  "We could, if it's just the village.  Rebuilding the ops center, that's trickier."

"And if we had someone else do the village, and reserved you two for the Ops Center?" Marc asked. "The mages could handle the village."

Cal considered again.  Finally he nodded.  "Yeah, I think we could."

Stephen looked at Marc and Cassidy.  "So, you want to go for it?"

"Yes," Marc replied, while there was no doubt how Cassidy felt about it.

They were mingling after the meeting, excitement and relief that there was a plan fighting for places on many of the faces there. Clusters of people talking and considering additional details. Dinah and Doni were speaking quietly, trying to continue the repair of their relationship.

Marc saw Tabitha standing alone down next to the waterfall. He walked down to join her there. Before she could say anything he offered, "Thank you for giving me a choice. I realize you did not have to do so. So I appreciate it all the more."

Tabitha smiled.  "I'm glad I did.  I had forgotten...many things.  You reminded me of them," she said.

He studied her for a moment. "Then I'm sorry for that."

She shook her head.  "I'm not sure why.  I'm not.  To remember that I can only choose for me?  I should thank you instead."

"So, is the new look indicative of a new you? Less waving of your arms in the air and reciting impossible to understand bad prose?"

She burst out laughing.  "No broomstick, either."  She turned to the water, her mouth twisting as she sobered.  "It's a hateful thing to see...and not know how or why.  I think it was a curse for hubris."

"I've had hubris enough for both of us. I don't envy you your sight."

"Thank you for that.  It means a lot.  As we go forward I hope to have no need of it again."  She faced him again.  "What will you do now?  Do you know?"

"I'm going to do what I can to help all of us to integrate into the polity of the Universe. I'm not as convinced as some that my help will be that useful, but we'll see."

"Yes, we will."  She smiled, remembering something else.  "I haven't had the chance to thank you for Lily's children.  You should come and meet them some time."

"Only if I don't have to babysit."

"No, you don't.  In fact we're turning away babysitters."

"Oh?" he asked.

"They're a sign of hope, of the future...not" she clarified, "because of the prophecy but because they are a sign that the Awakened go on....life in the midst."

"Ah, well then. I hope they turn out to be what you hope for. Considering their already confused childhood, let's hope they turn out all right."

"Yes, let us hope."