It had been yet another night of torment, Dinah waking up frozen in terror, the spill over surging down the bond into his mind.  If he thought it helped her he wouldn't mind it, but as it was it seemed more to exacerbate her condition rather than help it, as if it horrified her even more knowing he shared, even if only a little, what she was going through.

Marc had waded through the files Stephen had, what Trevor had collected, and even gone back to Bhutan and wandered through the dzong, trying to understand her terrors, trying to decide on a plan to help her. It was clear at this point she was desperately in need of help and deeply in trouble.  When he'd tried to speak to her about it she'd leapt into the well of denial, unable and/or unwilling to examine what was going on. So that left him little choice.

As he saw it, he had three options. First he could go to Julian, go back there, watch it happening for real, see her as a child, live through what she'd endured and then show it to her filtered through his mind.  Secondly, he could have Julian take them both back there, and let her see for herself that she was a helpless four year old and that what she was demanding of herself was far and beyond what anyone could possibly have done under the circumstances. Thirdly, he could dive into her mind, show her the fears that way, and hope that by doing so, making her face and acknowledge them, that she could move beyond them.   The third option terrified him.

His greatest strength, mentally, was what was generally referred to as coercion. It wasn't necessarily, although it might be, the ability to grab someone else's mental controls and force them to do what you wanted. Rather it was far subtler and far more insidious. It was about persuasion, and patient persistence and the absence of a willingness to accept that someone else wanted something different. Think politician at their absolute worst.

Marc had become Abaddon, the Angel of the Abyss, because he had charmed, cajoled and made willing true-believer slaves of others nearly as powerful as he. He'd ripped apart a galaxy in a quest to achieve for humanity a primacy it hadn't been ready for.

And as he contemplated an assault on Dinah's mind, all his fears of himself were coming to the fore. Would he be wise enough to stop?  Forever afterward, would he be tempted, whenever she made a decision he thought unwise, to use his abilities again? Hell he already did. He knew he could use her love of him to alter her decisions. He'd done it several times already. The deadly word he used that triggered it was 'please.' One simple word he knew would work every time. It was hard enough, as it was, not taking that one small step. And now he thought he could resist the allure of using the bond to go into her brain and tweaking a thought here, or using a memory from there, to alter her thoughts just a hair's breadth and have her see the world the way he wished her to?

It wasn't that he didn't respect her, or thought her weak. It was just that he'd seen what he could do when he was determined to do it and it scared the crap out of him.

He sighed.  Dawn was staining the eastern sky with gold and pink. He'd been standing staring out over the meadows, snow-blanketed, peaceful. She was finally asleep. He however couldn't sleep.  And no matter how much he wished the decision wasn't his, it was. She needed help. And the only one she trusted to help her was him.

Dinah shifted and moved closer to him, only he wasn't there and the absence of him filtered through to her mind and brought her up through the layers of sleep and into wakefulness searching frantically for him.  She opened her eyes and sat up, looking for him, still not used to using her mind to find him.

"I'm here," he said softly, without turning around. He tweaked the bond, a reminder for her that it was there.

She relaxed against the headboard, color returning to her face.  "Marc?  Why...Am I keeping you awake?"

He turned to look at her. His face was soft but his voice was weary. "Yes. It's killing me to see what you are going through. It's killing you."

She shifted restlessly.  "It's just dreams, that's all.  They'll go away."

"They aren't going away. They're getting worse. And yesterday you had a flashback during the day, when you were awake. I shared it with you, so don't deny it."

She paled at that.  "I'm sorry," she said, her voice small.

"It's not like you want this to happen. But we do have to do something. Dinah, I'm afraid for you."

"Afraid for me?  What is it you think is going to happen?"

"I'm afraid you're going to lose it and start screaming during the daytime and not be able to stop. I'm afraid you're going to convince yourself you deserve this. I'm afraid your fucking father, even from the grave, is going to destroy you."

Dinah shrank back against the headboard.  "I'm not crazy, Marc."

He walked over and sat beside her on the bed, staring into her eyes. "Not yet."

She shook her head, tears spilling over.  "No," she said, "no."

He reached out and took one of her hands, and lifted it to his lips. She felt his love through the bond, and his fears for her. He didn't hide what he saw, what he sensed, and what he thought she was denying.

"Let me help you, Dinah. Please."

"How?" she said finally.

He explained what he was thinking. Each of the three methods he knew of. He didn't hide that all of them would be hard. And he told her of his own fears.  Then he waited.

Dinah looked at him for a long time and then closed her eyes, willing herself to think back, as far back as she could go, to her earliest memories and to see not them but what surrounded them.  Not the helplessness when her mother wouldn't stop crying and blaming her, but what was underneath the helplessness.  And she couldn't.  She couldn't make herself look.  She saw the child Stephen had carried out of the apartment she and her mother had lived in, and tried to remember what she felt, what she thought had been happening, and she couldn't.  Her mind wouldn't let her.  She saw again Angus coming into the room, heard the words he'd said to her, 'my darling daughter Dinah' and felt the trill of terror that had gone through her when he'd said them, the sweat on her palms, and the sudden breathless panic she'd buried under sarcasm and bravado preferring the blows of his rage to the risk that he'd...That he'd what?, she wondered and just the question was enough to make her stomach turn over and her heart race.

She opened her eyes and looked at Marc again.  "So what do you think we should do?" she asked when she thought she could trust her voice.

"I can go back in time with Julian. See it, then share the memories with you. Problem with that is, that I don't know that it will be enough. I'm afraid it will be far enough removed  that you can just do what you are doing now.. standing back and looking at it as if it were someone else's life.

"We can both go back with Julian. But I'd have to force you, in all likelihood, to actually see the events, and might have to go into your head anyway. So that leaves option three as the one with the highest probability of success."

"And the one," she said through dry lips, "that you like the least."  She looked at her hands, twisting in the comforter and considered whether she could stand to go on like this and the price she'd pay if she did.  It was a price she couldn't, wouldn't consider, wouldn't even risk.  "Then," she said, "we both go back."

"Okay, I'll go talk to Julian. You try to rest. We'll do it as soon as we can."

She nodded, her eyes glued to him.  "Marc, I'm sorry I'm dragging you into this mess.  I'm sorry."

He laid his hand along the side of her face.  "I love you. If the bond wasn't there I'd still be here for you.  I'm here because I want to be. Don't you dare feel guilty about me too."

She shook her head, her mouth trembling.   "I'm just making it so hard for you and this whole thing, dragging out what happened and the babies...and Jolie's still here taking care of them for me and I'm suddenly just an awful mess."

He pulled her into an embrace. "Sweetheart. Listen to me. You are an incredibly strong woman.  I'm so bloody proud of you. You don't have to always be strong.  Lean on me. Please."

She clung to him, her face in his neck, like she'd never let him go, thinking that if she didn't know how to lean on him now she surely would before this was over.

He put both hands to the sides of her face and held her so their eyes could meet. "It will be okay. I promise."

She nodded.  "I love you so much, whatever happens, don't forget that, please."

"I know."

Dinah tried to rest after he left to talk to Julian and couldn't.  Her mind was flying around like a rat in a cage trying to find a way out.  So she got up, showered, dressed and went downstairs and made some coffee, then curled up in front of the fireplace in their suite, wrapped in a comforter and tried to lose herself in her memories of Marc, like she had in Bhutan.  She'd dozed off, her head leaning on the couch when he returned.  She blinked and opened her eyes.  "Hi," she said, trying to smile.

He sat beside her. "Julian has agreed to take us back there. And he'll give me a coin to use to get us home when we're ready. This way no one else is there and it stays private. He explained that we'll be unable to interact with what is going on. We'll be, uhm, sort of out of phase, so to speak.  And there's less worry about us doing something to change the past.  So we can go when you're ready. I'm just to give him a call and he can take us when we're ready."

She leaned against him, closing her eyes tight on a silent prayer.  "Then let's just get it over with, okay?"

He grinned. "Told him you'd say that. He's in the kitchen."

She nodded and stood up, folding the comforter and putting on the couch.  "Just don't let go," she said, turning to face him.  "Whatever happens just don't let go."

"I won't," he replied.

As promised the mage was waiting in the kitchen.  He smiled at Dinah.  "Just remember," Julian said. "It will look different, feel different from what you remember. Memories aren't true, or real. They are what they are, colored by how we felt, how we feel now. They get augmented with our fears, we try to erase what we don't want to remember. If your memories don't agree with what you see, you should question the memories."

Dinah just nodded and practiced breathing through her nose.  "Thanks Julian," she said.

The mage nodded, and Dinah felt Marc take her hand. And then the world changed. It felt a bit like being in an elevator making a sudden stop - at least her stomach thought that. Julian nodded at them, squeezed Dinah's shoulder and winked out. They were standing in a corner of the kitchen, a kitchen Dinah remembered all too well.  Against the wall, shoved into the other corner was the table, with the two chairs.  In the sink were the dirty dishes.  There'd always been dirty dishes, she remembered, and herself standing on a step stool trying to wash them for her mother.

She took a step forward and then another and there was the living room with the shabby couch and the mismatched tables and the stained armchair.  The TV was there, on and blaringly loud like it always was to cover the sound of her mother, who was sitting there, when she started crying or yelling at her.  Beyond, down a short hall was the bathroom and the bedroom they'd shared with it's twin beds and clothes thrown on the floor and make up littering the top of the dresser.

From the light spilling in through the window in the living room it was late afternoon and from the sounds coming from the bedroom she was waking up from the nap she despised.  Dinah watched, silent, transfixed, her breathing trying to go wild, as the four year old she'd been emerged from the bedroom and headed for the bathroom before coming into the living room, looking for her mother.

Dinah moved to follow her, hypnotized by the sight.  She forced her hands to relax, wiping her palms dry on her jeans as more of the living room came into view.  She slowed when the little girl slowed, and then stopped just as the child did, staring at the couch where her mother was, where she wasn't alone. Dinah stiffened, just like the child, unable to move.

Marc's hand rested on her shoulder, she could feel his breath on her skin. She could feel their link, feel his caring and his concern.

Her mother smiled at the little girl, a smile that confused the child but made her smile back, tentatively, wanting to please and watching the man warily.  "It's your father, Dinah," her mother said.  "Come say hello to your father."

Angus smiled at the little girl, a strange, eager sort of smile.  "My darling daughter Dinah, come give me a hug."  The little girl didn't move, while the man held his arms out to her and her mother encouraged her from the couch, a desperate note underlying the words. Outside the sky began to darken and the wind was picking up, rattling the screens.

Dinah's nostrils flared, her eyes growing wide as Angus patted her mother on the arm and said, "She's just shy.  All she needs is a little reassurance," he said.  Then he focused on the child, moving past the simple shields of her four year old mind like they weren't even there and whispered, "My darling daughter, my Dinah, I won't hurt you.  Come give me a hug.  I'm your father."  And she still wouldn't move, rooted to the floor with uncertainty and confusion, shaking her head and backing up with tiny careful steps, the feel of someone in her mind new and unwanted.  Angus reached down in her mind and forced her forward, like an automaton and the child, fright becoming terror, started to cry, struggling against him while her mother began yelling.

Marc wrapped his arms around her and held her still, his growing anger at what he was seeing apparent. He shared through their pulsing bond his view of what was going on.  An adult, with powers the child had no knowledge of, no understanding of, and no way to resist. There was, really, little contest.

Any resistance the child put up was easily countered by Angus, and as she fought against his will, Angus became more and more angry.  When the child reached the couch she was screaming and her mother was yelling louder, telling her to stop, telling her if he left again it was her fault, just like it was her fault before.

Outside the storm had arrived, driving rain against the windows, while the white flare of lightening announced the coming thunder.

Dinah was crying, her hand pressed to her mouth, as the little girl she'd been began pleading with her mother while Angus watched, holding her in place with his mind and stroking her hair, his smile predatory and gloating.  Then Dinah's mother grabbed her by the arm and shook her hard, demanding that she stop crying and when she couldn't, hiccuping and gasping for air against the sobs she slapped her, hard, twice and the child began screaming again, telling over and over that she was sorry, that she'd be good while her mother laughed and said to Angus, "See, what did I tell you.  I can't believe you think she's even worth the effort."

Angus, still in the child's mind turned his green eyes, alive madness and disgust on the woman.  "Not worth it?  What an idiot you are," he said and began laughing in counterpoint to the child's hiccuping sobs for her mother's forgiveness. Angus shook off the woman's hand, and turned his attention to the child.  He moved in her mind again, in every place there was, ferreting out all her secrets, all her little girl guilts and shames and then went deeper, into the parts of the child's mind where her gifts were and he examined them, a self satisfied smile on his face.  "Perfect," he said, and then he pulled the girl over in front of him, sending terrified panic flaring in her and in Dinah, both of them struggling to break free, while he exposed to her all the things he'd found, all the things she'd hidden away and began to tell them over and over again in her mind, like he was saying a rosary.

Marc was using the bond with his Dinah to share with her the revulsion he felt for her father. How he'd turned love to hatred and trust into power. How he terrified the child and Dinah's mother too.  How he used his talents to control what both saw, what both feared, and to learn what both knew. There were no secrets allowed, no safe place to hide, not even in the deepest recesses of their minds.

The child was struggling against his hold, while her mother watched, spellbound.  Angus ignored both the struggles and the woman next to him on the couch.  He bent forward, his eyes coming level with the little girl's, the green eyes so like his own and held them with his, his hands locked brutally tight on her upper arms.  "My darling little daughter, my Dinah," he said, his voice a sing-song sound, hypnotically pitched.  "You'd like to come with me, wouldn't you, come live with me and be daddy's little girl?  Just you and me?"

Dinah's mother, listening, began shrieking, and flew at Angus, clawing for his eyes. Angus let go of the girl, turning and back handing the woman, sending blood spraying from her broken mouth while the child fled for safety, running for the kitchen and the corner under the table huddling there, making herself a small little ball, terror making her tremble and her teeth chatter against each other while trying desperately to be silent.  Angus swearing at the woman who wouldn't let go back handed her again, viciously, breaking her nose.  Then he stood up to go after the child.

Dinah watching, trembling like the child, her teeth chattering as loudly, was fighting to get away, her awareness locked on the little girl under the table.

Marc was saying, over and over again in her mind, while he held her there, looking down on the terrified child, "You aren't that little girl any more. You can fight him now, you stood up to him, you defied him and you won."

"No, no," Dinah said over and over again, her voice desperate, a whispering scream of terror.

Angus reached over and turned off the TV and then walked towards the kitchen, his footsteps deliberately loud on the floor.  "Dinah," he called, finding her mind with his, "Dinah, I know where you are.  You can't hide from me, I'm your father," he told her as he entered the small kitchen and knelt down beside the table, reaching a hand under it to grab her and pull her out.  "I need your help, Dinah, your help with your mother.  You love your mother don't you?" he asked as she kicked at him and tried to make her self smaller, screaming at him to go away, to leave her alone.

And Dinah, struggling to get away was screaming with her, fighting Marc as if he were her father, feeling him in her mind and fighting him there.

Angus bent down lower so he could see under the table and the child kicked, as hard as she could, connecting with his face and driving him back.  He snarled with rage and reached into her mind and twisted it, uncaring of the result.  Then he bent down again and looked at her, huddled in the corner, blood streaming from her nose and reached in to pull her out.  "You're going to help me, Dinah.  You're going to do what I tell you to do or I'll do that again, harder."

The child lashed out again, and scooted back while Angus laughed and reached further back, his hand touching her ankle, grabbing it and starting to pull her out.  "I want you to help me, Dinah," Angus told her as he pulled her out and he showed her what he wanted her to do, to use the empath's gift that she had, to use it to fill her mother's mind with despair and self loathing.  "Do that for me, my darling daughter and then we'll go away from here, just you and me."  And he pressed on her mind, showing her what to do.  And when she still wouldn't, he twisted her mind again, harder as he'd promised and demanded she do as she was told.

Dinah screamed as he twisted, feeling again what she'd felt as a child and blood poured from her nose and mouth like it was pouring from the child's.  She fought Marc like the child was fighting, fighting to get free, to get away, from Angus, from his presence in her mind, trying to tear him out of it.

Marc wasn't using words now, he just clung onto her and sent her wave after wave of love and sent her strength and a sense of his respect for her and what she's survived. He held her there and kept her mind focused, and stayed with her, even as she fought to shove him out of her mind, and to cut their bond.

Angus told the child again to do what he said and twisted a third time, harder.  The child screamed and suddenly pushed back with her mind, doing to him what he wanted her to do to her mother, filling his mind with all her hate and rage and all the pain she felt.  And Dinah did the same, filling Marc's mind with what she felt as if he were Angus.  Angus screamed in outrage, and Marc's mind reeled as he was hit with her defensive thrust too.  Angus flung the little girl away into the wall, sending her head smashing backwards and leaving her crumpled there while he looked at her.  He kicked her again and again, sending the little girl and Dinah both into blackness, then he was reaching into her body, changing something in her mind and destroying her ovaries.

Satisfied with his handiwork he went over to the woman on the couch, crying against the back of it and jerked her head up by the hair, her screams mingling with the sound of the storm.  He looked at her and laughed before he reached into her head and stopped her heart.  He let go of her, let her drop back onto the sofa covered with blood and laughed again.

Then Angus looked around, at the spot where Marc stood, Dinah unconscious in his arms. He saw nothing there but shadows. Still, he swore he sensed something.  He shivered, cursed himself for a fool, and then was gone.

Marc, using Julian's coin, zapped them back to the present and directly to their bedroom. His mind was on fire, agony shooting through him, now that he'd made sure Dinah survived this ordeal and was safe at home.   Even with the pain that was a result of the push back Dinah had imagined was aimed at her father, Marc took the time to go over her mind as minutely as he dared.

She was uninjured physically, he was relieved to see, but he needed her to stay unconscious, at least until he could figure out what to do about what she'd just done to him. He realized, knowing her, that this, on top of everything else, would only add more guilt and fear for her.  With the bond, he'd been totally open to her and what she did was instinctive, not planned. But he doubted she'd accept that, so he pressed a bit in one part of her mind, to give her at least six hours of rest, unconscious, with no dream sleep. Then he staggered out of the room, in search of Tabitha, calling to her in his mind as his knees gave way and he went to the ground, grasping his head, as if that would help.

Tabitha, who'd been in the infirmary with the babies, found him on the floor, bent over from the waist.  She zapped him onto a bed in one of the guest rooms and then went into his mind, seeing the bruising and destroyed brain cells from Dinah's assault.  She put him to sleep for a while and moved carefully through his brain, reducing the swelling first, then addressing the bruised and burnt out cells, healing what she could and, because his brain couldn't, stimulating new growth where she couldn't heal the damage.  When she finished she pulled back and looked down at him on the bed, then touched a synapse in his mind and stepped back, waiting while he woke up.

"Merde A La Puissance Treize! I'd forgotten how bloody much a brain burn can hurt."

"How does it feel now?" she asked.

His attention went inward as he felt around in his mind and saw what she'd done. "Much better, but I need to keep Dinah out of my head until it's healed.  She ... We went to relive her childhood and she lashed out at Angus not realizing it was me in her head," he explained.  "If she realizes she hurt me..."

Tabitha nodded and slid back into his head, and began creating a kind of mirage while he watched.  When she was finished, unless you knew it was there, the wounded parts of his mind seemed exactly like the surrounding tissue.

"Thank you," he said softly.

"How is she?" Tabitha asked.  "Is there anything I can do to help?"

"I've given her 6 hours under, not in dream sleep. She passed out at the end. If you'd take a look at her, I'd feel better about how she is. As for her mental state, I've no idea if this helped or hurt."

"Of course," she said.  "If you want to rest here for a while I can stay with her."

"Thanks Tabitha. I'm .. a mess. I could use some sleep myself."

She smiled and patted his arm.  "I'll go sit with her.  You rest."  She waited a second or two while he relaxed and then left, closing the door softly behind her.  She found Dinah asleep as she'd expected.  She checked her out and found nothing wrong, so she removed her clothes, cleaned off the blood and tears and tucked her in.  Then she got comfortable in a chair, ready to while the time away.

Marc woke some five hours later, confused at first where he was.  He checked the bond with Dinah and found her still out of it and doing well. He made his way downstairs and raided the kitchen for a sandwich and a beer. He was sitting over them, checking on the damage to his mind, as well as the illusion Tabitha had spun. He was pretty sure it would work.  Dinah wasn't sophisticated with regard to her talents yet, and besides, he was pretty good at keeping people out of his head in a pinch - well, except for the bond.

He shook his head and decided to stop worrying about that, he had enough else to worry about. He had no idea how she'd react when she awoke, so he'd better push the rest of it out of his mind and concentrate on that.

Tabitha looked up as he entered and stood.  "She hasn't stirred.  The sleep is probably good for her.  You look like you're feeling better."

"I am. Thanks for the chance to get some rest," he said as he stood looking down at Dinah. "Please let me be doing the right thing for her."  It was said more to himself than Tabitha.

Tabitha touched him lightly on the arm and said, before turning to leave, "If you need anything let me know.  I'll bring some food up in a while for her if you'd like."

"Please," he replied. He watched her as she walked out the door, then stood staring down at Dinah for some time. Then he showered and dressed and was sitting in a chair near the window looking out at a snowstorm when she awoke.

"Hi," he said as Dinah began swimming up toward consciousness.

"Hi," she said, sitting up.  "Are you alright?"

He nodded.  "How are you?"

"I don't actually know," she said after a while.  "Okay, I suppose.  I just don't know...Do you need to be all the way over there or do you think you could come closer?"

He walked over and sat on the edge of the bed. He reached out and took one of her hands and raised it to his lips. "Hungry?"

She shook her head.  "Not really."  She stared at her lap, plucking at the comforter.  "I...what do I do now?" she said, raising her eyes to his.

"Can you talk about it?  To me?"

"If I knew what to talk about," she said.  "It's just...I mean I just don't understand why he...even crazy, for real crazy...and she never cared about that and when he came back like that..."

"Mostly people don't make a lot of sense. Particularly people like Angus. He had an agenda, but so far as I could tell? It was secondary to feeding his delusions about what a great man he was and how everyone was merely a tool for him to use. He didn't love your mother, or you.  I doubt he ever did. I doubt he was capable of love."

"But she was," Dinah said, not looking at him, her voice small.

"Dinah," he said softly, watching her carefully, "I'm not excusing her, but I did see her try to get him to let you alone and concentrate on her at one point. She was living with a madman. I doubt she could have run away, but she might have been able to, I don't know. But certainly she wouldn't have been able to take you. So my question is, why did she stay and live in terror? What kept her there?"

"It's where he knew to find her, my grandmother said.  They wanted her to go back and live with them, to help her but she wouldn't."  Dinah stared at her hands, the tears gathering in her eyes, dripping on her fingers.  "He mattered to her more than anything, just like...just like..." She let it trail off, and then tried again.  "I'm just like her," she finally got out.

"How so?" he asked.

"Because," she said, "You matter more to me than anything even the babies, like with her...I...it never occurred to her to not put him first."

"Ah," he said and regarded her for some time in silence. "For me, that is perfectly natural.  My family, it began long before my parents, thought themselves quite special. They bred like rabbits in an effort to increase the right sorts of genes, and then left us with the aunts and uncles and ignored us pretty much. I resented it, I grant you, but more because of the stillbirths than because we were ignored once we were in existence."

"Yeah," she said.  "But I'd guess they'd of put you close enough to first to keep you safe."

"No, they didn't. They put their own agenda first. We were merely the implementation of that agenda. Dinah, we can keep the babies with us, if that's what you want. But if we leave them here, they'll be safe and happy. With the whole metaconcert thing with ours and Doni's and Christopher and Adrianna, its not like they're normal kids anyway. They'd be miserable apart. So if we want to be with them, that means we stay here. I can live with that, if that's what you want. But don't decide it out of a fear that because you aren't protecting them with your life every second of every day, you are somehow a bad mother, like yours was."

"I just keep thinking," she said, the tears coming for real now, "that what ever it might have been between them and me, it's never going to be that now."

He pulled her tightly into his arms. "What is it you want it to be?  It's your choice, Dinah, but only to an extent. Your children aren't just lumps of flesh. They're going to have needs and wants and somehow this whole thing with them essentially bonding to Doni's twins and Chris and Drianna has to make things different. That was the whole reason for the commune. We knew at the outset it wasn't going to be normal. They're special. They're different. We're just going to have to figure the whole parent thing with them out as we go. That doesn't make us bad parents. It makes us wise and accepting of the reality."

"I suppose I want for them what I didn't have and what I know I can't give them.  At least not directly.  And I suppose for few moments there, before all this happened I was thinking maybe, even if I couldn't do it all, I could do part of it.  I never knew, " she said, "that a person could love like that, the sort that says I can't.  The only way I can love them is to accept that I can't give them what I want them to have."

"Isn't that the greatest sacrifice in the name of love?  To want more for them than you can give and fix it so they will get it, even if it tears you up inside?"  He stroked her hair. "It's okay to be less than perfect, Dinah. The secret is to know it, and do what you can, the best you can. And recognize your limits and accept that someone else can help."

"They're your kids too, and you only ever talk about what I want."

"Well, that's because I fucked up my first go round with kids so bad I'm terrified I'll do it again.  Just like my family, I saw them not as individuals but as bits of flesh I could manipulate."

"And if you weren't terrified?"

"And if you weren't? What a pair we are," he said, shaking his head. "I feel sorry for the hellspawn already what with us two as parents."

She nodded.  "I'm glad he's dead.  And I'm glad she is too."

"Well, I'm thinking they'll do just fine what with the family they have here. So just as well our birth families aren't in the picture. Although..."

"Although?" she asked.

"My two kids are out there someplace. Just think. You might get the chance to be a stepmom."

"For some reason I'd been thinking they'd died or something," she said.

"Hagen and I tried to kill one another several times. Neither of us managed it. Cloud ran off with a Tanu, pretty much the spitting imagine of Kalket.  No idea where they are now. And, quite honestly, I don't think I want to know."

She nodded.  "This morning, it must have been hard for you."

"Watching you suffer was harder."

"I love you.  And there's no way I deserve you."

He smiled at her. "Quit stealing my lines."