He woke, hours later, to the sound of rain on the windows, conscious of a sense of peace he hadn't know for a long time. They had, he knew, a long ways to go between them but he was at least sure he hadn't lost her. It had been his deepest fear all along, that the damage to her, to them would be irreparable. She'd shown him it wasn't.

He brushed her hair back from her face where it rested on his chest and shifted her weight just a little, trying not wake her as he settled back against the pillows. He loved watching her sleep, her lashes shadowing her face, her breathing slow and even. He loved everything about her, he admitted ruefully, he always had, even the parts of her that drove him crazy and sometimes drove them apart for years. Hopefully they had moved past those things now but if they hadn't, he'd deal with it, as he always had, just please, God…not for a long time to come.

She stirred eventually, much to his relief. The smile she greeted him with dazzling as she drew him down towards her. She only consented to release him when she realized that the sounds she was hearing were the growling noises from his stomach.

"How long since you've eaten?" she demanded.

"Days. I'm starving, sweetheart and you're going to have to let me up long enough to find some food or I'll be no good to you."

She sniffed. "I suppose it's equally as long since you showered?"

He laughed. "At least. Is that a hint?"

She grinned, "Yes, and after you can find food for us both." She met his eyes then and said, "Stephen, I…I just…" and couldn't go on, suddenly, tears forming at the corners of her eyes.

He cupped her face gently in his hands, catching the tears with his thumbs and kissed her. "It's all right, love, it really is all right."

After that it was some time before he entered, let alone emerged from the shower, but he did finally, his hair wet and curling at the ends. He pulled on a pair of jeans and kissed her, lingeringly, reluctant to leave her. "I am going to check on Marc and find food. Tabitha left stuff for you in the bathroom for whenever you were ready for it, and there are clothes in the dresser, I think…though you don't need them on my account." Then he kissed her again and left.

He met Tabitha just outside the door, leaving Marc's room and ignored her pointed look at his bare feet and equally bare chest. "How is he?"

"He's fine, he just woke up. He's still exhausted, though he probably wouldn't admit it. I'm getting ready to send up some food for him. I suppose, from the look of you, you're ready to eat as well?"

He kissed her on both cheeks, making her blush and said coaxingly, "If you wouldn't mind. We're starving and you're our last hope…"

She hrmmphed. "Save for flirting for her. It's of no use to me. But I'll send a tray up for you two as well since I'm already doing one for him." She considered him for a moment, noting the change in his face, the life back in his eyes and approved it. "Your friend in there, I told him you're convinced I'm a witch. You should probably reassure him I'm harmless either way."

"But why would I lie to him?"

She hrmmphed again and headed for the door. "Suit yourself, you always do."

He knocked on Marc's door and went in, stopping to adjust his eyes to the light. "May I come in? Tabitha said you were finally awake. Do you want me to turn on the light?"

"Yes, please do so. Are you well? And Doni?"

Stephen found the light switch and then sat by the bed. "We both are." He hesitated then for a moment. "Marc, I...I don't want to embarrass you...but I want you to know that there is no way to adequately thank you for what you did for me...for her."

"I'm only sorry it took so long to realize... She's a strong woman to have survived that, Stephen. You are a very lucky man."

"Yes, she is...which makes me something more than lucky, but still certainly undeserving. How are you? I heard something of what happened."

"I'm mending. Thanks to Reno. Otherwise..." Marc looked away, perhaps looking into that abyss of nothingness he'd faced. "I should give him a raise. Still, we rescued the girl."

Stephen laughed. "You actually pay Reno? He doesn't work merely for the fulfillment of it?"

Marc smiled. "Well, otherwise he'd show up for work in holey jeans and flip-flops. Tommy was most helpful too, I was told. Please tell him thank you for me. Oh, and tell Cal no, he can't take my equipment apart to study it."

"How unkind of you, but I'll be sure he knows." Stephen considered the man opposite him in silence for a moment. "All the land around here, I'm sure you're aware that I own it...well sort of. I own what owns it, but never mind that...I also own another entity that owns part of the range on the north side of the valley...part of the upper range of the Blue Ridge. The rest, as it happens, is owned by the National Park Service, making for very nice neighbors. I bore you with all this because I feel that, having given up a mountain on my account, I could at least offer you one in return. There is a couple you could pick from if you're interested."

Marc's eyebrow rose. "An interesting idea. I doubt I'll be welcome back Home once someone figures out I'm the one who wrecked it. May I consider it for a time?"

"Were you?" he asked casually. "I was rather of the opinion that it was something they did to themselves; our involvement being at most… incidental."

Marc grinned. "True. Although I doubt you could convince a majority of the Council to accept that reasoning. Still... As soon as I'm released from my incarceration, I'll take a look at your mountain. Thank you for the offer, Stephen."

"I'm glad. I find I've grown to enjoy your company. It's...stimulating having you around." Stephen paused to be sure he had Marc's full attention, and then said deliberately, his voice flat, "And, Marc...fuck the Council. They don't mean shit."

Marc looked a bit taken aback by the start of that comment. So it took him a moment to reply, "I thought we could...reconstitute it. Perhaps it has outlived its usefulness entirely.

"One or the other, I agree. But as it stands now, as it's constituted...it's over, one way or the other."

"They won't go quietly. It won't be pretty. Or painless. Still ... No revolution is easy."

"I'm up for it if you are. I and all the resources at my disposal...I should add. I think between us we have, as you said, the wattage required."

Marc held out a hand. Stephen took it. They shook somewhat solemnly. "Let's see what we can manage. Next time, I'm blowing all of Home out of the Universe."

"And I'll help. Now, I should probably leave you. But I'd like to point out two things...I wasn't fomenting revolution with my remark, not that I'm against it mind you...merely opining, any bias of mine notwithstanding, that you did the right thing regardless of anyone's opinion and the other is that Tabitha, most certainly, is a witch. I find that kissing her soundly works most of the time."

"Well, I am fomenting revolution and I'll even take the help of known witches if they offer it. Although..." he paused. "I prefer my witches to speak plainly rather than in incomprehensible riddles. Still, I'll try kissing her and see how I fare."

"Incomprehensible riddles? Usually when she does that to me...When you're better, perhaps you'd share them with me. And when you kiss her...warn me so I can watch."

Marc laughed. "Go. Go back to your Doni. Rest up. You'll need it."

He stood, grinning. "So will you. And thank you..."

Tabitha had been and gone, leaving enough food for an army on the table and Doni still in the shower when he returned. He listened to the sounds emerging from the bathroom critically and decided he probably had just enough time…He sent a thought winging to Tommy and poured some coffee. He finished it in two swallows, poured more and then, taking it with him, left again.

He and Tommy arrived at the appointed rendezvous simultaneously.

"What's up? How's Doni?" Tommy asked, as he entered the infirmary, pad and pencil in hand.

"She's fine, Tommy. Thanks. Now, I'm in a hurry and there's a bunch of things I need you to do, ok?"

"Sure, fire when ready, Boss."

"There's a set of architectural renderings and plans in the vault from `97. Pull `em out and get `em to Cal. He'll know what to do. Tell him right away if he can." He paused, thinking and then added, "Oh and tell him Marc said no."

Tommy grinned and nodded.

"Then set up a meeting for tomorrow morning probably, but this evening is ok too…I want Marc...and Reno, too, I think. Also Trevor, Melly, Liam and you. Oh, and Cassidy and what's his name…"

"Jordon?"

"Yeah, that's him. It'll be ten in all. Set it up over at Clem's. I don't want to take any chances. Only those people, only they know. Got it?"

"Of course. What else?"

"Ask Clem if he could have some of his people in the hall most of the time."

Tommy, puzzled but willing, added it to his list. "Next?"

"How's it going with Cassidy?"

Tommy thought for minute. "OK, I guess. There's been some trouble with Duncan, but other than that, nothing."

"Duncan?"

"Yeah, he's not happy…Cassidy ain't one them, he says."

"Let Cassidy know I'm here if he needs anything and he has my full support. I should be back in the office for a few hours tomorrow; tell him we can meet then, probably with Marc if he's available so find out will you?"

"OK."

Stephen smiled at him. "Marc said you were a big help with things. He said to thank you. The three of you saved his life. And I am also more grateful than I can convey. I really appreciate it Tommy. Thank you."

Tommy blushed and shrugged, staring at his pad. "I, uh…it was uhm… nothing. I was, ah, glad to help. Is there, uhm, anything else I can do for you?"

"Yeah, think of something I can do for you."

Tommy replied without hesitation, thinking of the office as he'd last seen it, "Redo the office?"

Stephen laughed, "However you want." He reached out and squeezed his shoulder. "I mean it, Tommy. I don't know what I'd do without you."

She was standing in front of the window looking out across the valley towards, if he remembered right, the ruins, not moving at all. She was wrapped in a towel, another handing from her hand that she'd obviously been using on her hair. There were still water droplets on her skin, sparkling in the sunshine. She barely seemed to be breathing.

"Sweetheart?" He'd left her alone too long.

"You can't see it from here, can you?"

"See?" he asked, moving towards her, not comfortable with the underlying sound in her voice.

"Lily and Richard's house. Where it used to be. I can't see it from here."

"No," he replied, stopping just behind her. "You can't. It's too far."

"I suppose they all died when they brought the buildings down."

He was liking the quality of her voice less and less as it became more and more distant, atonal…a thing with no life in it at all. "Doni…sweetheart…"

She didn't reply.

He reached for her through the bond. Her mind was as shut down as her voice.

He kept his voice soothing, soft and low as he moved to the side of her, "Doni…" He moved his hand slowly, carefully, making every effort to avoid startling her, to her shoulder.

She didn't react at all to his touch.

He slid as carefully as he could between her and the window, placing both hands on her shoulders.

Her eyes were glazed and blank, her face closed and tense.

He brought a hand up to her cheek, cupping it, stroking it soothingly with his thumb, saying her name softly, while he gently entered her mind and began to surround it with his presence. When she didn't respond, still moving slowly, he picked her up and carried her to the bed murmuring her name softly, speaking it into her ears and her mind.

He laid her on the bed and gathered her to him, surrounding her with his body even as he had surrounded her mind with his, his hands a soothing motion on her skin, his voice warm and soft against her ear.

When she came back to herself, his only warning was the huge breath she drew in before letting it out again in a shattering scream that seemed never to end, struggling against his hold with everything she had. He didn't fight her, he just held on, avoiding or deflecting what he could, absorbing the rest and all the while calling her name through the bond until she suddenly burst into uncontrollable sobbing and went limp in his arms.

She kept trying to speak and couldn't, until the sobbing ended and then all she kept saying was his name, over and over again, as she huddled against him trembling. After a while she fell asleep, Stephen still holding her.

When he was sure he could move without waking her he got up. By then it was late morning and the eggs Tabitha had sent were congealed, the bacon cold. He ate some of the bacon and drank the orange juice before asking the first person he saw when he opened the door for fresh coffee.

He watched her sleep after that, the coffee in his hand and his heart breaking for her all over again.

She woke in the early afternoon, silent, her eyes huge and haunted, accenting the thinness of her face. He made her eat first, using a combination of coaxing and bullying that helped get rid of the haunted look in her eyes. When she'd finished, hating himself, he took her in his arms as he took control of all the joinings between them, giving her no chance to escape him, opening them as wide as he could. He surrounded her with himself and his love, opening himself completely to her and made her show him what happened that day, made her share with him every memory she had of it and of what had come after...refusing her any hiding place at all, following her into all of them and forcing her to bring them into the open. He relived it all with her, not stopping until he was sure there were none left that he hadn't made himself a part of in some way so that forever after they were subtly changed, just as he'd done once before for her with a different set of memories in a similar, radical act of love.

Then he set himself to make her forget everything except what was between them, plunging her without mercy into a whirlpool of sensation until she was begging him, desperate and wanton in her need for what she craved. He held her there, utterly defenseless, impossibly vulnerable while he taught her, playing her body and her mind like an instrument designed by God for him alone, that there was nothing, no single part of her that she couldn't trust him with; no part of her he didn't want, that wasn't his. When he finally answered her need, she screamed for the second time that day but by then, he was sure, it had nothing to do with anything except him and what they shared between them…something that he would pay any price imaginable to keep, and to protect.