Stephen returned to his office an unhappy man. His headache was back and the Reverend's news about the cemetery, it's proximate cause he was sure, an enormous complication. It was his fervent hope that Trevor Raine would be able to respond to his letter immediately. If he did then he planned to have Charlie and Melly excavate the ruins and most probably the grave as well. There was not a doubt in his mind that under that house they were going to find the remains of six adults and four children. The only question he was concerned with now was how they died since that would drive the shape of all subsequent questions, at least if his thinking was to be relied on given the force of the headache now besetting him.

He rounded the corner into his outer office and paused to address his faithful aide de camp. "Tommy, I need aspirin, coffee and I think an ice bag would also not be out of place. Could you do that with out betraying me?"

Tommy did not grin openly. "I can."

"And then can you protect me from all danger for a few hours?"

Not grinning was harder this time. "Yes."

"Would you make that an order for two please? On all items." Marc added, entering the office at the end of this exchange.

Reno, observing the two men from the doorway, said, "I see that neither of our fearless leaders is feeling well today." He made no attempt to contain his grin. "That is what happens when they go drinking without their aides to keep them out of trouble.

Marc gave him a look that would have felled a lesser man. Reno, unaffected, said, "I think they would be better for a moment alone, don't you Tommy?" And before Marc could hurt him he left, taking Tommy with him.

Stephen and Marc in bonded and brotherly silence repaired to the inner office, the one with the comfortable chairs. Neither said anything for a while. Then Stephen caught Marc's eye, a grin starting on his face. "That was not quite what I'd planned last night. If it helps none of the others are in any better shape."

"I seem to remember something to do with some pear brandy." Marc said, his own smile flickering at the corners of his mouth. "And some verses to the Battle Hymn of the Republic about Stonewall Jackson wearing lavender underwear sitting tall in the saddle and why men liked to ride behind him from Brother Gerald?"

"Yes, that's when Prior Douglas…" and broke off, laughing and groaning together, remembering the Prior's face.

"And demanding an explanation from Clem who passed out at his feet in response." Marc struggled to get the last words out amid his own laughter. It was all coming back to them.

When Dinah arrived they are both convulsed with laughter, and Tommy and Reno had arrived with sustenance. The sight of everyone laughing sent her temper that much closer to slipping a very strained leash. Dinah had not enjoyed the last thirty-six hours and having to wait that long to vent herself on the person she held most responsible had only stoked the fire of her outrage and sense of ill-usage. In her current state, it was perhaps fortunate Tommy hadn't noticed her arrival in time to stop her. She'd have simply swatted him from her path, rather like dealing with an annoying insect. It wasn't that Dinah didn't like Tommy, she did. But today he would have been both an instrument of his boss and an obstacle in the path of true justice, about to be administered by her.

She neither knocked nor said hello. She just swept into the office, Tommy scampering forward to intercept her, too late. She located her target in the armchair, placed herself directly in his line of sight, took aim and fired.

"Stephen you are a complete bastard! You are a paternalistic, self- righteous, meddling pig of a man! How dare you?" she demanded, having begun at a yell and not retreated from it. "How dare you!"

Stephen, still laughing, appeared to be having some difficulty understanding why Dinah, whom last report had placed in Amalfi dancing the night away, was suddenly in his office and ready to kill him dead.

Marc, observing his difficulty, leaned over and said, in what he thought was a whisper, "I think she's mad at you. Reminds me of the Prior."

Stephen whispered back, "I think you're right," sending them both into another fit of laughter. "You're suppose to be in Italy."

Tommy and Reno were rooted to the spot. There was no way they were going to remind anyone they were in the room. They wanted to see this.

"You're damn straight I'm supposed to be there. Only I didn't know I was pulling behind me a wake consisting of several of your friends and friends of your friends. I was like my own bloody little parade there, thanks to your high handedness. You were having me followed and I didn't know you were doing that because you didn't tell me. And you, you chauvinistic son of a bitch, didn't tell me because you knew I'd refuse. Not only that, you witless moron, I have to get attacked to find out about it and to find out you almost died and then I get to come home and discover there is some equally witless bozo you sent to my hotel telling everyone that he's there looking for demons because I asked him to." She was doing something beyond mere yelling as she finished.

Stephen whispered to Marc, "I guess I don't need you to help protect her."

Pleased to have a hint of daylight, Marc said, "I get it. This is Dinah McNeill."

Dinah reloaded and re-aimed. "Well now that we know who I am, just exactly who are you suppose to be...his sidekick…Francis the talking jack-ass?"

Reno collapsed into the nearest chair, clamping both hands over his mouth. Tommy looked a bit more uncertain.

Stephen whispered again, "I wouldn't answer that one if I were you."

Marc grinning and vastly amused replied, "I think you might be right. Is she always like this?"

Stephen tossed all sense of self preservation to the winds. "Usually. It's that red hair, I think. Gives her a tendency to the irrational. Melly is much more logical, much more reasonable."

Whatever Marc had planned to reply to that was lost, since before Stephen finished Dinah lost it completely. She lunged forward, clearly ready to slug him and Marc defended his friend the only way he could. He grabbed a hold of her arm pulling her backwards and down towards his own center of gravity, in this case his lap. Unfortunately he neglected to grab the other arm as well, because as soon as she'd recovered she simply redirected her punch, the arm supplying it still free, and clouted him one upside the head as hard as she could. She went to do it again only to have her swing blocked.

Still laughing at her, Marc locked ahold of her gaze and didn't let go. "I wouldn't do that again, if I were you.' His voice was very soft, velvet over steel. "I might hit back." He paused for just an instant and then added, "Unless you'd like me to?"

Dinah, one part of her reflecting he seemed unmoved by the blow, found it suddenly remarkably difficult to form any other coherent thought. The only thing she seemed to be able to focus on were the bottomless depths of the dark eyes that refused to release hers.

"Well, I see this is going exactly the way you planned, there, my love." Laszlo said from the door way, his voice light and his eyes hard, moving from the look on her face to the man's whose lap she was occupying. "Need any help? Or is the gob-smacked look a sign you have this one under control as well?"

Dinah, recalled to reality by the return of another reason for her rage began to struggle to right herself. Marc tried to oblige her. Between them, Dinah ended up flat on her ass on the floor. Reno and Tommy looked at one another debating the wisdom of retreat.. Stephen, to save his life couldn't have help it. He dissolved in laughter, taking Marc and Laszlo, as well as Reno, with him and leaving Dinah planning her revenge.

It was Tommy, taking pity on Dinah, who brought order out of chaos. He shoved his way toward her and with great dignity helped her to her feet, then fussed enough to give her time to get her pride back in order. Finally he seated her across from Marc and Stephen. "Is there anything else I can get for you, besides the coffee here?

"No, thank you Tommy. I appreciate it, though.

"Uhmm," Tommy hesitated. "Are you just dropping in or should I let Tabitha know you're here visiting?"

Stephen, having regained control had also replayed her tirade so he gave her no chance to respond. "She'll be staying Tommy, at least for a few days, possibly longer." He held up a hand, forestalling Dinah's imminent protest. "No. We're not arguing."

"We're not?"

"No. And before you fly off the handle again, would it be asking too much if I could have some of that coffee and the aspirin bottle before we do anything else?"

Reno, grinning, poured for Marc and then Stephen and passed the aspirin bottle.

"I suppose the first thing would be introductions. Laszlo, Dinah McNeill, Marc Rogatien and Reno." Stephen swallowed his aspirin while the others made polite noises. "Now, Dinah, suppose we back up to the bit where you said you were attacked and you can expound on that for us. No, wait, first…Laszlo why are you here?"

"Because somebody had to stay with her and I was the only one she couldn't make go away. She's a lot of fun to travel with when she's ignoring you."

Stephen, perceiving the hostilities were about to recommence jumped in first, "OK you two can bicker later.. So what happened. You were in Amalfi, and you were attacked? By who?"

"I don't know. I was waiting outside the hotel for Laszlo to park the car and two men came out of no where and tried to force me into their car across the street. Next thing I know five guys appear and have a hold of them, while Laszlo is picking me up off the pavement. And, it turns out that those five guys represented Baz, at your request, Carmine Abrizzi, at Baz's request and Laszlo at Laszlo's request." Dinah controlled her temper with visible effort.

Laszlo took up the tale. "Carmine has `em now. But from what I could tell they were definitely after her specifically. This had nothing to do with me or the operation on Malta.

"How do you know that?" Marc asked.

Laszlo glanced at Stephen before responding, "It was known that she was under Carmine's protection and the guys after me are second raters who'd never go up against him. Second, they're talented, maybe Awakened. If Carmine's guys hadn't been there they'd've of gotten away. They'd've also probably gotten Dinah, too."

Marc turned to Dinah. "Did they attempt to take you, or kill you? Could you tell?"

"I'm not certain. It got crazy. There were so many people there. And vampires are so fast. I'm not sure."

"I need to speak with this Carmine," Marc said, and Tommy, who had all the numbers reached for a phone and dialed a number. He handed the phone to Marc.

"Hullo. This is Marc Rogatien. Dinah is here with us and I wanted to know what if anything you've discovered about..."

They could hear Carmine's voice through the phone talking quietly and steadily. Marc listened. Occasionally saying "I see," or "I understand." When he handed the phone back to Tommy he said, to the others, "Mr. Abrizzi seems convinced also that they were after Dinah. He seems to believe they hoped to capture her and take her with them, but alternatively they were to kill her, if they could not take her alive.. I dare say he's made quite certain they are telling him the truth."

"Yeah, but why me?"

"Because they could use you to get to me; use you to draw me into situation where it would be easier to kill me. And that, if you're interested, is why we're not arguing about whether or not you're staying for a while."

 Melly received Stephen's summons with delight, since it meant he had a problem that needed solving, anticipation at the idea of some field work and annoyance, since she had a number of things going on in her own life that would now need to be put on hold. Stephen seemed to forget sometimes that she wasn't officially a Listener, more like a consultant for special problems.

She'd started to work with him back when the teams were being attacked and he'd needed an expert in ancient languages, cultures, and mythology. She was an archaeologist, who'd worked mainly in the middle east so she'd been the best they could find. Eventually he'd recruited her to coordinate his intel activities here on Home, a job he'd described as requiring little time and less effort. Currently it took a lot of time and a lot of effort, not to mention a degree of secret agent-ness that she found appealed to her sense of humor and stirred long forgotten childhood daydreams of being a female James Bond.

Melly read Tommy's note again, but it still said nothing about the problem and suggested a two week absence. She tossed it in the shredder and began listing in her mind everything she'd need to do to spend what she was fairly sure would end up being at least a month, if not more at the Refuge. She knew this because Tommy hadn't told her what the problem was and that meant Stephen had told him not to. Stephen was being cagey.

The next day she arrived, left her luggage in the foyer and went looking for Tabitha, an old friend from her previous visits. She found her in the dining room where her staff was setting up for dinner, talking with a man Melly didn't recognize which didn't surprise her. The information she had was that were now nine full teams in residence at any given time, six with orders to report, and others on stand-by pending a full blown staffing review. Plus they were increasing the staff in Ops Center and in the Infirmary.

Melly stopped just outside of earshot of the conversation, taking a seat at one of the empty tables to wait. Tabitha, who'd seen her, started in her direction, drawing the stranger with her by force of personality or so it appeared to Melly.

"Melly, you're just in time. I was just getting ready to take this young man over to Stephen's office, but now you can do it for me if you wouldn't mind. I expect you're headed that way yourself?"

"Well, yes, but…well my luggage is in the foyer, I wanted to drop it in my room before letting him know I was here, not knowing how long he'll keep me busy after that."

"Don't worry, honey. I'll have it taken up. I need to have them get a room ready for this gentleman and Trevor so don't worry about it. This here is Mr. Sebastian Cassidy. Mr. Cassidy this is Miss Mellisande Stewart."

"Pleased to meet you, ma'am, though most folks just call me Cassidy, on account of my daddy being the Sebastian `round our house when I was growin' up and I hope you will to. "

His eyes conveyed frank and unabashed admiration, he spoke with a southern accent that was as soft as butter, and the smile that accompanied both was charming and self-effacing. His manners were such that if he'd had a hat he'd of tipped it at her, Melly was sure. She found herself grinning in response. "I will, if you'll call me Melly, Mellisande is such a mouthful."

"Thank you, Melly, I surely will. And Miss Tabitha, please don't be puttin' yourself out on my account. I'm just here to meet with Stephen, nobody said anything about me movin' in today. So ya'll don't need to do a room for me."

"Oh, I think you'll find you'll be needing it, and with the number of people showing up lately if you don't someone else will."

Melly laughed. "Come on, there's no arguing with her. She's always right. So you're here to see Stephen?"

He nodded, falling into step beside her. "I was told to come see him at 3:30 pm today. But nobody told me where, just The Refuge. So here I am."

"Well, his office is right here, and this is Tommy Eneas, his aide. Hi Tommy, is he around?"

"Oh, yeah, Melly, but he said to tell you to relax, Trevor's getting here in the morning and he'll explain everything to you both then, so you can just get settled, though if you wanna talk to him I'm sure…."

"No that's OK. Tommy, this is Sebastian Cassidy who actually has an appointment to see Stephen. So I won't bother him right now, just let him know I'm here." She smiled her good-byes as she left.

Tommy looked confused. He kept Stephen's calendar and there was no Cassidy on it. If Stephen had made the appointment he'd have told him. It was one thing Stephen was usually really good about. "You have an appointment? Are you sure? Because I have nothing…" Tommy let his voice trail off as he pointed to the calendar.

"Yes, Mr. Rogatien's office contacted me and said I had an appointment to meet with Stephen today at 3:30 pm.

"Well, maybe…Hold on just a minute, let me see…maybe he just didn't tell me…"

Tommy slipped around his desk and over to Stephen's door. He knocked and went in without waiting for an answer. A minute later he was back. "He doesn't know either, but he's willing to see you." Tommy held the door open for him, clearly inviting him to enter.

Cassidy smiling the same charming and self-effacing smile did as he was bid.

He cast a swift glance around the room as he entered, before directing his gaze, a limpid and innocent green deep as a woodland pool in dappled sunshine, at Stephen. A swift stride brought him to the desk. "Stephen? I'm Cassidy, Sebastian Cassidy. It's really a pleasure to meet you…I've heard so much about you." he said extending his hand in greeting, a charming but not at all self- effacing smile on his face.

Stephen shook his hand automatically. "Oh…I see…well Yes, well…It's a pleasure…please…won't you have a seat. Erm…what exactly can I do for you Mr. Cassidy?"

"Please, call me Cassidy, everyone does. Mr. Rogatien's office said you were looking for an executive officer, a sort of second-in- command to handle the day-to-day stuff and that I should come see you about it. I have to say it's really an honor to be considered for such a position, especially since I'm not a Listener."

"Second-in command?" Stephen was clearly somewhat at sea.

"Yes. That's what I was told. You weren't expecting me?"

"No, I afraid I didn't know I was looking for a second-in command. But, now that I think about it…Uhm, why would you even want a job like that?"

"Well sir, you and I want the same thing."

"We do?" Stephen was feeling a bit dazed by the man.

"Yes sir. You are passionately committed to integration and so am I."

"Passionately committed?" He was starting to sound like a parrot.

"Yes, and so working with you is the best way I know of to advance that agenda. I am extremely excited by this opportunity and gratified that you would meet with me today to discuss it."

"Advance the agenda?" Stephen hadn't known they had an agenda. "But if you were handling the day-to-day things here, you wouldn't be all that involved in other things, I can assure you. You won't have time, at least not for the foreseeable future."

"Oh, I know that. Mr. Rogatien's office was very clear about what my role would be and why they thought I might be a good fit."

"They were? And why was that?"

"I was the Executive Assistant to the Director of the National Military Command Center at the Pentagon until I awoke on 9/11. They feel that I might be useful in adding to the efficiency of your operations here as well as some other plans he has in mind."

"Other plans?" Stephen was back to dazed parroting.

"Well they weren't all that specific about the nature of those, just plans that they described as a natural outgrowth of what you're already doing here and supportive of the long range goal of integration."

"Does this person you spoke with have a name?"

"Yes, he said it was Reno."

Fortunately for Stephen, Marc chose that moment to join them.

"Stephen, I..." Marc was saying as he strode in. His mouth snapped shut as he regarded Cassidy. "I must be getting senile. Or perhaps it is this bloody hangover..."

"I've got the perfect cure for that, sir. I'll give, Reno, is it? the recipe."

"Ah, fine. Stephen," Marc said turning to said person sitting at his desk wondering just how it was that things had gotten so far out of control, "I beg your pardon. I meant to mention Mr. Cassidy here to you but given the nature of our, uhm, evening, I, uhm, forgot. With regard to the changes I was suggesting as to how we can run the teams more efficiently, I thought Mr. Cassidy here might be an asset. He's used to controlling military and intelligence operations in multiple arenas and keeping track of the overall picture. I thought his skills might come in handy."

"Yes, well, hopefully he will extend his talents to understanding that I'm not usually this dim. I imagine, from what he's told me so far that dealing with the operations here will rarely if ever cause him to break a sweat. In fact," he said, just the hint of a query entering his voice, "I'd have said he was a bit overqualified and might have more trouble dealing with boredom than anything else."

"On the other hand," Marc said, "perhaps we can, uh, expand not only the number of ops teams you run, but also, ah, extend their mandate. Or, utilizing a slightly different analogy, your ops teams can do more than just find and return newly Awakened. Perhaps they can make contact with... others."

Stephen leaned back in his chair, steepling his fingers in front of his face and regarded Marc without speaking.

After some minutes like that Marc said, "Uhm, Stephen..."

Stephen waved him to silence and continued thinking. Finally he spoke, as was his habit; not announcing a decision but acting on it. "Tommy," he yelled.

Tommy appeared like magic, pad in hand.

"Ah, you understand me too well. Tommy, I have some instructions for you. Cassidy here will be joining us as what for lack of a better term I will call my second-in-command. He will need an office, probably a clone of yourself and quarters, not necessarily in that order. Once you find out how soon he can start, which I hope will be day after tomorrow at the latest, call a staff meeting of the senior personnel and the team leaders so I can tell them they have a new boss."

"Anything else?"

"Yeah, hold on a sec." Stephen extended his hand across the desk to Cassidy, "Well sir it looks like you have the job. Tommy will help you out with anything you need. He'll be with you in just a moment if you wouldn't mind waiting for him outside."

Cassidy, profuse in his delight and exuberant in his hand shake, beamed upon them all, all the way out the door.

Stephen waited until he was gone and then looked at Marc, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth, "If you've some time there's some things I think we should discuss."

Marc took a seat and regarded Stephen. "You have my attention."

"Tommy, would you tell everyone I've runaway from home and am not coming back today?"

Tommy rolled his eyes and left, shutting the door behind him.

"I suppose I should have guessed that you were as creative a miscreant as I like to think I am myself in some matters."

"I've suspected your actions for some time. Once I did I decided to take over the Council to give you the room to let that creative streak loose."

Stephen burst out laughing, as much from amusement as amazement at the sheer audacity of the man opposite him. When he had regained command of his voice he said, "Then I don't need to embark on a general confession of my activities of late nor my plans for the Compound?"

"Some detail would be helpful so that I can block anyone who might find such things problematic. Since you are no longer officially on the Council, you can hardly be expected to report all your actions to the full Council. And what you report to me, stays here."

"Well, broadly speaking what I'm planning, with Clem's help and that of a few others, is to use the Compound to resettle children and families of all sorts, talented and Awakened, while also continuing to use the Exiled to handle some proportion of the New Ones without reporting them to the council and beginning to siphon off some portion of the others to remain here, fostering the children into various situations. I'm presenting the entire plan after the dinner on Saturday to the committee."

"Once I learned how many teams you were pulling from Home, I knew the numbers you were reporting must be wrong. Seeing the Reverend confirmed that assumption. We'll have to send quite a few Home, however. Otherwise we'll raise too many flags. What we can do, however, is send them Home and then get the ones we need back down here in a somewhat, roundabout fashion.

"If we can utilize your contacts amongst the exiled particularly, we can even report a single Awakened even if there are multiple ones, if they are whisked off quickly enough," Marc said, frowning as he thought.

I agree, we have to go slowly. But I think by hand picking the ones who either stay here or are fostered by the Exiled we should be OK from that perspective. The really tricky part will be situations where we bring the families back together. Right now, I'm diverting about ten to fifteen percent directly and another ten percent or so indirectly. But the addition of all the new personnel has slowed that down considerably because it isn't widely known among the teams I am doing this."

"Yes, No doubt the Council has spies amongst them to try to watch for just that. This is where Cassidy can be a major asset. He directed covert ops teams, quite often in theatre along with overt military actions. He can perhaps coordinate that for you."

"That would be helpful. And if first we can figure out whom here is not on the side of the angels, shall I say, I would be a lot happier. The key personnel are the guys in the ops center and in the infirmary. So his first covert operation will be right here, I would think. I can't thank you enough, by the way, for suspending me from the Council. I couldn't have done this otherwise."

"Yes, the Council's entire strategy was flawed. Luckily for us. So, I think what we need is a list of those you are nearly certain are trustworthy. And a shorter list of those you are certain of. Then Cassidy can put his considerable expertise to the problem. I will work my end of it and attempt to follow up from Home. How long I will be able to do that, however, is in question. I have a few allies, but far more enemies on Home."

"The underlying autonomy here was designed to minimize those problems at least on a day to day basis. Obviously this is going to take a lot of up front coordination. But setting that aside for the moment....I wonder if I am correct in my supposition that when you speak of using the ops teams for contact with others, you are thinking perhaps further afield than, say, a distance measured in time zones?"

"My vision entails a synthesis of many species, if that is what you are asking. Humanity, Awakened or Otherwise, hardly has a lock on intelligence or consciousness."

"I agree, on both counts, since the next logical step is outward. I ask because the committee has been busy in that area and has been debating ways of being busier."

"Then we seem to be in agreement on a good number of issues. And if it all goes wrong, we can hang together."

"We will certainly hang, no matter what, I'm sure. If Cassidy can take over here to the extent that I think he can, then I would like to begin to work with those who have not signed the Covenants to begin with, to create teams for that specific purpose."

"Yes. I'd hoped we could free you up on day-to-day details, so you could mastermind the wider war."