Saving the World One Bra at a Time

[Rockingham]

"You stupid crazy bitch," She forced him to drink the blood coming out of her wrist. Dark blood, almost black. Not the kind one gets from scratching their knee, but the kind one gets from severing a vein, or opening an artery. She had cut deep.

Did she know how deep, or even care?

He grabbed her, forced her hand to lay straight up on the table, and grabbed a roll of gauze. With force even he knew he did not posess he held her there, rolling out the bandage over her wound.

His strength was returning, slowly but surely. Was this because of her blood? Damn, how fast did her shit worked. How did this fucking woman ever have a tumor in her system with all of this super fucking blood inside of her?

Again, didn't know, didn't care.

He patched her up though, noticing that the family reunion was taking place now. Mother and sister, and little Gabrielle trying to save his sorry ass.

"Just calm down," He told her, bringing her up to him, hugging her. A moment they never had together, him holding her and hugging her, before letting go.

"I'm here, I'm ok. I'll be fine. It's no big deal."

He was well aware of his nakedness, and the blood dripping, most of it hers, from his genitals. He grabbed a sterile linen from one of the shelves and began to clean himself.

"Sorry you all couldn't see me under better circumstances, but I don't think it could be helped. Seemed like Daddy gets a little crazy when it comes to guys fucking their daughters."

He saw Reese, looking perfectly fine. Balls intact.

"Then again, maybe he just hated my ass..."

Tom got up, shaking himself off.

"I need a fucking drink."

 

[poohlive]

"Sophia," He put a hand on her shoulder, not trying to block her way, but hoping she would not run off again. She ran off soo many times by herself, trying to do everything on her own like always.

"Maybe," He spoke to everyone, but hoped Sophia would hear the most, "We should stick together, and think of a plan. Whatever happened, we weren't killed, even though we easily could have been. I think we should stick together, form a plan, and then go and take whatever revenge you want to take."

He felt no ill will at the moment, for anyone, but if Sophia wanted someone to die, he would help her with that. It's the least he could do for the love of his life.

"I want to help you Sophia. I want to be on your side. Really on your side this time. Not just going with you because it's mutually beneficial for us both, but being on your team, and someone you can count on. I'm changed, you know that. I only want to love you and be with you."

He smiled, kissing her, "I only want you to be happy."

 

[RedHairedandFriendly]

Sophia stared at Reese and shook her head. He wanted her happy? Then why wasn’t he letting her get a boat and take off. She didn’t want revenge, she wanted to leave. She was done, fed up, ready to get out and she was willing to take her lover and her sister with her, hell she was willing to take fucked up Tom too, if she had too.

She stood back and jerked her shoulder away from Reese’s grip. She leaned against the door frame and waited. Her eyes taking in the scene before her. It took her a moment to respond and when she did she didn’t feel any better.

“I’ll wait all of five minutes. Then I’m leaving. I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t know how you have information we don’t have, especially that shit about Gabi being pregnant.” She smirked and turned to her mother. “Did you know that mom? You’re going to be a grandma.”

She pushed several strands of hair back behind her ear and glared at Tom. “I don’t know why you had a knife on my sister, so don’t expect sympathy from me. You’ve fucked her up royally and if I get my way, you’ll be dead if I ever get the chance.”

“I’ll give you five minutes to come up with a better idea than jumping onto the nearest boat and getting the fuck out of here.”

She said nothing else. The world could fuckin’ blow up for all she cared. She was done with this spy game as soon as she could arrange everything she needed to arrange.

 

[FurryFury]

"I'd like to know how he knows too. I'm not even sure about a baby." Gabi said to her sister or maybe the air as she swayed a little feeling dizzy and weak. It wasn't like her to feel this way, not even with the brain tumor had she felt weak like this. That didn't really matter though, just Victor and Sophie mattered now, there might not even be a baby at all.

"Don't leave without us." Gabrielle heard her voice say but it didn't sound like her own voice at all. It sounded like someone soft, someone begging, that wasn't her. She was nails. She was . . . tired so tired.

"You stupid crazy bitch." Someone said grabbing her arm, forcing it down and wrapping it.

"Wha?" She murmured seeing black spots in front of her eyes.

"Just calm down," Victor's voice said. Then someone was hugging her. She breathed in the scent of the person and relaxed. Normally she fought hugs but she didn't have the strength and she didn't want to this time.

"I'm here, I'm ok. I'll be fine. It's no big deal." He said.

"I tried to fix it darling, I tried." Gabi said sounding half asleep to her own ears but not caring much.

"Sorry you all couldn't see me under better circumstances, but I don't think it could be helped. Seemed like Daddy gets a little crazy when it comes to guys fucking their daughters." Tom said, his voice rumbled in his chest and against Gabrielle's ear, the one pressed to his chest.

Gabi smiled and snuggled closer eyes closed just enjoying the sound, feel and smell of him in this tender moment.


Tom saw Reese, looking perfectly fine. Balls intact.

"Then again, maybe he just hated my ass..."

Tom got up, shaking himself off.

She slipped from his arms and slumped to the floor. It was cool, the floor, very cool, not too hard either. Gabrielle smiled eyes still closed.

"I need a fucking drink." Tom said as he left.

"Yes, drink." She whispered. "Drink deep."

 

[poohlive]

"It's mostly monitored by the Blacken System," Reese said, perfectly honest. He didn't like the way Gabrielle look. The poor thing was under soo much stress.

He showed Sophia a small electronic device, like an advance Blackberry. It worked with a ticker showing different information.

"I hacked into it last year. It gives up to the minute accounts on different employees, especially ones on assignment. It picked up the difference in Gabbie's system almost instantly."

He showed her, and the various files it opened. Intimate files showing nearly everything about the people here, as well as everyone else.

"And Tom was easy. I suspected when I rescued him, but didn't know for sure until my leak in the Russian government revealed their own plans. They were going to use him for a lot more than just the assasination."

Reese lovingly sat beside Sophia, watching the ongoings with a happy contempt air about it. Things seemed so simple now.

 

[Rockingham]

Sophia pushed several strands of hair back behind her ear and glared at Tom. “I don’t know why you had a knife on my sister, so don’t expect sympathy from me. You’ve fucked her up royally and if I get my way, you’ll be dead if I ever get the chance.”

He flipped her off, gave her a brilliant smile and said, "Just try it cunt rag. We'll see who ends up on top."

He bent down to Gabrielle, sighing as he saw her near catatonic. The pupils in her eyes dialated, overflowing with sadness. Or fear, or whatever the hell else she kept bottled up inside of her.

He scooped her up in his arms, putting her on one of the operating tables, letting her rest.

"She's lost a lot of blood," Given, would be a better word. She had sliced herself open to make him whole. He thought, if he asked her for her fucking heart she would open herself up and hand it to him, a bloody smile on her face before she died.

Such a beautiful girl.

"She's not going anywhere soon. Anyone got some medical training, I think she needs an IV."

 

[RedHairedandFriendly]

Sophia raised a brow to both men in the room, pushing past Reese and her mother to take a look at Gabriella. She muttered under her breath, "Lame and stupid." Who she was talking about, she didn't make obvious.

She smoothed her sister’s bangs and whispered, “I’ll take care of everything.” She looked around the room and found the sink. Her gaze passed over several metal cabinets and she left Gabi’s side. Soon she was opening up cabinet doors and pulling first aid supplies out of their contents.

A sink was in one corner and she quickly washed away any germs that may have contaminated her sister in any way. Next she walked over and grabbed a slim, elastic band, which she used to tie around Gabi’s arm, slowing the blood. As the band forced the blood in her vein to bulge, Sophia picked out more supplies and pushed them over to her sister.

She grabbed a stool with her foot and sat down. “Now, I bet my dad would be so proud of me.”

She looked to Cassandra and smirked. “The man who raised me. . .the man I would consider the real Dad.” She wasn’t sure why she wanted the bite to sting, but she did and she hoped it had done its job. Sophia looked to her sister and sighed. “You and this reckless ass are going to get each other killed. I care about you,” she told her sister.

Sophia pressed against Gabi’s vein and though it was small it hadn’t yet collapsed. She slid the IV needle in and grinned. “Quick and easy.” She released the band and set the saline solution to flow steadily. “Now, I know you and it, like to party hard, but I don’t.”

She pulled another needle from the table and filled it with the required dosage to numb her sister’s wound. Sophia washed away the blood from Gabi’s self-inflicted wound and then inserted the needle into each side of the cut. She waited, preparing a needle with thread and then when time had sufficiently passed she quietly set to work, stitching her sister’s arm. When she was done she sat back admiring her work.

With a heavy sigh she wrapped up her sister’s wound and then stood up. “Let’s get you into one of the main bedrooms and you can rest.”

She looked at Tom. “Can I trust you to do that? Or are you going to try and kill her again? Now that you’ve got your balls back, do you think you could keep from fucking her long enough to let her heal?”

 

[Rockingham]

Got his balls back?

Tom looked down at his sad and shriveled excuse for a package, wondering just what in the hell she was talking about. That damned blood cured cuts and bruises, but it wasn't some miracle drug.

Was it?

He didn't feel anything, just a slight numbing and pain as before. Although, the cuts were gone, as if they had never been.

"Oh, is that it, let the gimp take care of everything? Yeah, I can see that everyone else is busy..."

He stared around at the three of them just standing there.

"No, don't bother to get up. Let me take care of it."

But, a part of him did want to be alone with Gabrielle, did want to have her away from the others... It was like an itch, like in his balls earlier. He grumbled some more, but limped his way to getting her out of the operating room, and somewhere more private.

She was on one of those stretchers, and it slowly made its way down the hall.

 

[poohlive]

Reese was behind Sophia, looking over her shoulder from time to time. His eyes wide, and almost child like. They wandered here and there, wherever something important took place.

"You know, she's right there... you can just talk to her without some snide comment."

He nearly whispered it, passing it off as almost something muttered under his breath. Sophia had been through soo much, the last thing she needed was another problem hanging over her shoulder.

"I think you two should talk," He said, now loud enough for both of them to hear, "It has been, what, years? You know, and there is so much love still there, isn't there? I hope there is. I hope you still feel something for each other. I know not a day goes by I do not feel my own love for Sophia."

 

[FurryFury]

A cascade of nightmares flow through Gabi's mind as she is wheeled away. She is wheeled by her lover, the father of a child she might be pregnant with and the man programmed to kill her. In her nightmares, the colors are bright and muted at the same time. Things are both sharp and fuzzy. Images that feel so vivid and hurt so much are hard to hold close and remember even a second later.

Sophia turns on her heel and walks away.
Her father experiments on her and her sister when they are young and as they grow.
Her mother bleeds her, smiling sadly and patting her hand. "Sorry." She says, looking like a pretty and deadly whore.
Reese looks on smiling his new idiot grin.
Her lover fucks her while cutting her to ribbons. Gabi laughs. The pain keeps her real. The pain releases her.
She's dead and free.
The baby inside her is as dead as she is. Unlike Gabi the baby might not have wanted this though.

Trust doesn't work. Love makes you blind. Wishing doesn't work. She tells herself.
Why is everything so tragic? Why can't one thing work out? Her heart feels torn apart.

She sees the tiny unformed baby on the floor. It's been cut out of her body.
It's trying to breathe but it's gaping like a fish. She was it's life support. She let it down.

Reese's eyes turn cold and calculating. He laughs at her. He reveals himself because he knows she is dead already. No one can see him as he really is.

Where is Sophia?
Where is Victor?
"Where am I?" Gabi screams in her dream. She has to care. She has to save the baby.

"Where am I?" Gabi mumbles weakly trying to shake the arms of the sandman from her mind.

 

[Rockingham]

"You know, I ask myself that same question, time after time," Tom lay at the far side of the bed, the lights were out, only a single one illuminated them both as shadows. He held a rather large knife out in front of him.

Blood was everywhere.

"But I can't figure it out, Gabrielle. I can't figure out why there's some message playing in my head, some fucking recording that a german bitch put in there for me to kill you. I tried you know, I tried soo hard. I think I could have, before."

He got up from the bed, walking around the room, pacing almost. The knife, switching back and forth in the light, deadly, sinister each time the blade glinted off the light.

"On the plane, if I had gotten to you before that other fuck... if it had been me, I would have pushed your head right into that fucking mirror, and kept on pushing, just kept it until you cracked, letting blood and brains and thick wads of your hair pool down in the sink. Wouldn't have that been fun for Mommy and Daddy to clean up?"

He came up to her, the knife laying against her stomache. It danced along her skin, small white etchings wherever the blade touched. The cold snap of the knife did not penetrate her skin though, it just circled around her stomach over and over again.

"But I can't help wondering if it's mine. That's what gets me. That's what keeps me from plunging it into you right now. Is it mine, however many guys you fucked before, and after me, however many other little spermies mine was competing with, is there even a chance?"

The knife trailed along the curve of her breasts, up to her neck. She could not move though, her arms and legs were tied down, like before, complete immobile.

She was his to control.

"I just need to know, how many? Tell me, be honest with me for once, My dear sweet Sophia. Be honest and we can end this game right now... for better or worse. I want to kill you. I need to kill you. It's calling in my blood... my fucked up blood that is mized with yours. It calls to me, some fucking loop in the back of my head I can not get rid of, not unless I kill you."

The knife dragged along her skin, a small droplet of blood emerged. He leaned down, licking it from her delicate skin.

 

[FurryFury]

"You want to know how many there have been?" Gabi chuckles. The knife feels good on her skin, tracing shivers up and down her body. She wishes she didn't feel so damned tired or she'd give him a run for his knife right now. As it is she can barely hold her head up.

"How many have there been for you?" She asks. Gabrielle sighs, exhaustion washing over her. She feels so heavy but her head is too light as if it might just expand into the ether.

"Never mind, I'm not up to games right now. I'm going to give you a gift here, a freebie, okay?" God, why do I care so much for this guy, she wonders?

"There wasn't anyone that I fucked close enough to the time I got pregnant, if I am pregnant but you. I'm not supposed to be able to get pregnant, the agency takes care of that but I guess the Rambaldi device healed that along with the tumor and every other damn thing when it made Sophia and me carriers of the damned miracle blood. I guess your little sperms were still viable and it hooked em up with my eggs. If I'm pregnant, which is the only explanation I can come up with, for the missed periods, sensitive breasts and exhaustion I'm feeling, it has to be yours." She shivers while the knife traces her body. Her eyes closing because she is too tired to keep them open.

"It was at least a month before I even fucked anyone else. Not that we were betrothed or anything. Life was just busy. I kept getting interrupted. I tried to ass fuck this pilot, I was thinking of you then too, but we got ambushed and it didn't work out. Since then it was just Mark but that was later. Before then, well, I'd taken a sabbatical from men, I thought maybe Reese and I, never mind. I am NOT going through every nameless fuck I grabbed on a mission or all the times I got raped by "family," as a kid. I just won't go there. I picked up a homeless dude just before you, we didn't fuck but I made him clean up and eat me." Gabi chuckles weakly.

"Anyway, the way we left it, you wanted to turn me in and keep Sophia. It's not like I thought you'd care or we'd be ever be together." Gabrielle opens her eyes and looks at her Victor.

"Is that what you wanted to hear? Or did you want to hear I fucked fifty others in the same 24 hours I did you? You don't believe me, that's fine. If there is a baby, you can get DNA tests done. You don't have to believe me. My blood if it helps you with your balls, can possibly eat away at your programing too, I dunno. Or maybe you could just care enough." She chuckles again dryly, wondering why she is babbling away like this.

I hate feeling weak. I hate being vulnerable. If I make it through this and off this Island, someone is going to pay. She thinks. If there is a baby I have to get it safely born though. I don't have time for a baby. Then she thinks about her blood. Giving her blood to Victor was stupid, could she have hurt the baby?

Her dreams come flooding back to her. Her eyes widen in horror. Has she messed up this child's life already? What would something like the Rambaldi device do to a child? Why had her parents decided to experiment with their kids so they could be used this way by the device? Why couldn't I save the world this time? That's what I do. I failed the world. I failed this child.

To her own amazement and disgust, Gabrielle began to cry.

 

[Rockingham]

"It would have helped," He said, letting the knife drop to her wrists, cutting her from the restraints. If she fucked 50, 20, hell even just one. If Reese was also in the running, then he could justify this nagging inside his own head, this drive to plunge the knife deep into her heart and keep it there.

In the end, he simply cut her loose, and laid beside her in bed.

"Only one," He spoke, holding the knife delicately in his hands, one on the hilt, the other at the point, twirling it around slowly.

"And, she made herself up to look exactly like you. A Russian duplicate, nearly perfect. Other than that, nothing, no one. I don't think there could be... no one is as good as you, or as bad either."

He dropped the knife between them, useless now. And, it did no good for him to hold it. When he held it, his hands shook at the inactivity of not using it. He would do better with that temptation out of his grasp.

"I want to protect you, you and our baby. Whatever cost. I think you deserve that much from me."

 

[FurryFury]

Gabi was having trouble following Victor's meaning but she watched the knife in his hands. She watched it as if she were hypnotized. Through her tears it arced light and made her hungry. She wanted it so bad. I know I shouldn't want that, not with the baby, she thought. Even so she wanted to feel her skin sliced open and her blood rush out hot and salty. The pain, please give me the pain, she prayed. That thought was quickly followed by another, I must protect the baby. And that thought was chased by; but no one protected me. She shivered.

He was talking about who he had fucked. From what she could tell he was only talking about who he had fucked since her. Only one? That was surprising. What about the hippie chick? He'd seemed more than tied to her. Only one, that looked like her? A small smile lifted the corners of her mouth. A tear slid into the crease at the corner of it. She licked it. A hope, that she knew was more dangerous to her than knives or guns, surged in her chest. She tried to suppress it but it was stubborn like a weed. It kept popping up.

"No one is as good as you, or as bad either." He was saying. Again her heart beat a little faster as equal parts hope and fear thrummed through her being.

He dropped the knife between them. It felt like a physical need denied to her. She knew he wanted it too. He wanted to cut her up and bathe in her blood. Gabrielle wanted the same and to do that and more to him. She wanted so much with him, fucking, lot's of fucking and pain, lots of that too. Pain of the body kept you sharp. It made her feel alive. If only that was all that was at stake but now her heart was too. Now there was a potential child to shepherd. She wasn't good at taking care of her body because, well, best not to think about that. The point was now, that she needed to be good at it. She wasn't sure she could handle this at all.

"I want to protect you, you and our baby. Whatever cost. I think you deserve that much from me." Victor said.

It shredded her heart to hear him say that even as it lifted her spirits higher.

"Protecting the baby might not be the same as protecting me. I love you but we are two seriously fucked up people, we might have to . . ." She let the comment trail off. A major battle had been fought and won inside Victor. How the Russians or the Germans or whoever had known about her and him enough to put this all together and in play she didn't know. Stranger things had happened in her life. Until now, nothing as strange as actually having someone who cared about her had though. This was new, exciting and scary.

"Maybe you could just lie down with me?" She said embarrassed by the strange almost pleading sound that came from her mouth.

 

[Babette_____]

So much happened in such a short span of time. Cassandra watched one daughter stitch up another, another rushed in and demanded explanations, then the first slit her arm and offered up a blood sacrifice to save what was apparently the father of her grandchild. A chill ran through her and she swore she’d protect her daughter and the child before Alex could get his hands on them. That however meant finding Alex and that meant leaving her daughters behind.

She didn’t want to, but deep in her gut she knew it was time. She’d found them. She’d made sure they were safe and knew each other. They had each other now. They didn’t need her. Not with them, they didn’t. They needed her to play the part behind the scenes, to deal with Daddy and make sure he was no longer a threat.

When the room cleared of Tom and Gabriella, she left Sophia and Reese to deal with finding a way off the island. She headed back to the computer room, her husband’s high tech office, stopping to pick up a bottle of bleach from a utility closet.

Soon the covers were off the computers and bleach was poured over every square inch of electronic equipment. There would be no way to track Alex and that was how Cassandra wanted it. She knew enough of where he was and how to find him. All she had to do was stay close to the sickest, and most influential person in the World. One would think it was the President of the US, but the Chinese Government had the largest military operation in the world and it would be those leaders that were going to pay out the ass to keep their soldiers healthy.

It wasn’t long before a cell phone was in her hand and two calls were placed. One to pick her up and another to leave an abandoned boat at Alex’s private dock. In a few hours, she’d be gone and her kids would have a way off the island, when they were ready, with their lovers in tow if they so desired.

 

[Rockingham]

"I think I'd like that," He thought this would be a first. He had never laid down with a girl before. After sex, maybe. He'd slept with them, lying next to them, his own seed running down their thighs, and they got those few hours of satisfaction as a man's arms surrounded them while they slept.

But, as he took hold of the knife, giving it to her, and laid down, his arms wrapping around her, their stomaches touching, he couldn't help but think it felt soo right.

So right and so wrong at the same time. This wasn't him, this wasn't them. This wasn't their fucked up relationship they had promised each other. He should have been fucking her ass, ripping her apart while she begged him to take it harder.

Yet, he kissed her forehead, and had vowed to protect her, like some knight in a damned fairy tale, running in to save the day on his noble fucking steed.

"I can protect you both, you know? You and the baby, you are both precious to me. I don't want to see a hair hurt on either of your bodies. Not if I can't help it... I've never made a promise before Gabrielle. But, that's one I can make, I can make it easy enough."

 

[RedHairedandFriendly]

Sophia watched them all leave, all but Reese. Her mother’s disappearance annoyed her and the situation that was revolving around her only added to the nails on the chalkboard that seemed to be a constant annoyance in her mind. She took a deep breath and rushed after her mother, losing her in a maze of halls and doors, eventually she found the room she suspected her mom had just left. Computer hardware was left in disarray and she wondered what the woman had been thinking.

“This is so fucked up,” she muttered and leaned against a wall. “I wonder if I disappear right now, if anyone would fuckin’ care.”

She was sure Reese had followed her and she wasn’t shocked to see him standing there looking at the scene around them. “I hope she has a plan, otherwise I’d say she’s screwing us over.”

Her fingers curled into fists and she took several deep breaths. “I’m ready to go. Maybe Mom and Dad have the right idea. Just get the hell out while the island is still in one piece. How long are we stuck here? How long before we can leave? I’m not found of cliches, but as they say in the back streets of some dank alley, ‘let’s blow this popsicle joint’.”

“I need a cigarette. It is a constant habit I am feeling nowadays.”

 

[poohlive]

Reese nodded, walking away. He returned minutes later, handing her a fresh pack of Marlboro. They were wides, good stuff, ready to kill her one lungful at a time. He smiled as he gave them to her.

Reese began looking through the computers.

"I would care, if you left. I would try to find you, no matter where you went. You're my girl now, my fiance. You mean the world to me."

He grabbed one of the hard drives from a computer, looking at it, examining it. White bleach ran down one side as it tilted in his hands. He threw it over his head, disgusted, searching once more.

"I know I'm... different, different than you remember. I'm probably nothing like I used to be, huh? Like, there's this new person, wearing Reese's skin. I bet you would like the old Reese back. I'm sure he would know what to do in this situation. Probably would have killed your father before you had all gotten off the helicopter. That's how Reese is."

A fragment of that attitude, that disjointed, shardlike mirror reflection. It was as if the New Reese could see the old Reese through a thick fog. Neither recognized the other, and the moment vanished before he understood it.

"Your mother does have a plan... I wish I could turn this weird New Reese Wisdom over her way, and know what it is. I don't though, all I know is that her plan definitely isn't our plan. What she wants is hers alone, and I don't know who's side she's on."

It was an easy way of saying, when the time came, Reese didn't know if Cassandra would be fighting alongside her husband, or against him. Reese didn't know, he had a gut feeling, but nothing more.

If Sophia went crazy, if she wanted to take over the world, what would Reese do? He loved her, he wanted what was best for her. Would he sell his soul to make sure he plans were seen to, would he help her, even if it meant going against everything he stood for?

What did he stand for?

"But, we can leave whenever you are ready, with or without your sister. We can just run away together, live in the Bahama's, drink margarita's off each other, and spend every night fucking like bunnies until the sun comes up."

Reese tore away another hard drive, this one clean, no bleach fell from it when he tipped it over. There wouldn't be much, but with a good programmer, they would be able to find something.

"Or... we can stop your father."

 

[RedHairedandFriendly]

Sophia stared at the cigarettes, pulled one and lit it. She drew in the nicotine, and sighed. It didn’t help her, not really, only gave her fingers something to do. She felt helpless. Everything around her was falling apart and she was struggling to pick up the pieces. Her thoughts moved to her sister and Tom.

Would it be better for them if she just left them to their own demise. Gabi seemed to be on a path of self-destruction and Tom was going to be the one to take her down. Reese wasn’t the man she fell in love with, but she still loved him, but how much did she love the memory and how much did she love the man? Finishing her cigarette she stomped out the end and stood up. She couldn’t answer any of her questions, Reese was right, they needed to stop her father, but she also wanted to let someone else do it. How long would Gabi need to rest?

“Why don’t you see what you can get from that and the small disk the bird had. I’ll look around here and see if I can find mom. We can meet back at the guest house if you like.”

She stretched and kissed his cheek.

“Thanks,” she whispered against his ear. “If you don’t see me at the house than I probably fell asleep on the beach. I may head down there later too.”

 

[poohlive]

An hour or so later, Reese was walking down the beach. A small portable device in hand. A blackberry, something a little larger than a cellphone, a lot smaller than a lap top, and about able to do the same things as both of them.

He saw her, sitting there against the swamp-like backdrop. The water pooled in around the beach, almost dark and threatening. Reese could see why Alex picked this place.

He wondered for a moment, as he saw her sitting there, if this is what his life would become? Her running off and him playing catch up, trying to find her as she went to do her own thing. Maybe, maybe that's all he was. Just an extension of her, helping her, doing her chores, making sure she was safe.

If that is what it took, he would do it. He would happily lay at the feet of the woman he loved and make sure she was all right.

He sat next to her, handing it over.

"The hard drive didn't have much. But I was able to find this."

A page turned up, all Korean. He could tell it was Korean the way it ran along the page.

"I have no clue what it says though. The six languages I know, none are Korean. I was hoping you might, or maybe your sister. It doesn't much matter though, if it's Korean, then your father must be working for someone Korean. And there's only a few key players to look at."

And the small chip, it was oddly strange as well. He showed her what it brought up. A series of codes, words and numbers in strange combinations. He didn't understand, he wasn't sure what it meant.

"I'm sure if I saw the code, or some part of it, I could figure it out. It was probably on those computers that your mother destroyed. All I have is this thing, and it might have some pretty features, but it doesn't have anything like that. We need to either get to a computer expert, or an agency with some better hardware."

It didn't seem like much to go after, did it? They had been in the middle of everything, immersed, and now they were left alone, traveling with little more than a single piece of paper in Korean. Reese had his contacts in Korea, at least the old Reese did. The new Reese did too, wasn't that fun. No difference between the two, at least none to the outside world.

It was only Reese himself and his sweet fiance where he was different, where there was a unique split between the old and the new.

"I'll follow you. Whatever you want to do, whatever you feel you need to do. I love you, Sophia. I always loved you, it just... it took me this weird change to admit it. We can stop your father, we really can. I think, with everyone how we are now, with things changing, with the truth finally out, we can stop him... We can still save the world Sophia."

 

[RedHairedandFriendly]

Korea? The thought of traveling around the world again was not appealing at all. She needed rest, just like Gabi did, but not the same reason. When did they leave? Now? She was able, as was Reese, but Gabi wasn’t, and neither was Tom. She couldn’t leave Gabi with Tom, so she was stuck on this island or at least stuck here until someone came to save them.

“To Korea then, when Gabi is ready, but not till then. I can’t leave her to Tom, he’s sicker and twisted than ever before.”

She looked over to Reese and sighed. “I need time to think, too. I won’t let Dad get away with whatever he’s currently getting away with for long and Mom. . .I really don’t care what happens to her either. She can disappear as far as I am concerned and I hope she is. If I can get rid of Dad, then the World and all of us will be happier.”

“What’s next? Gabi’s not ready to fight anyone. . . so do we stay here?”

 

[FurryFury]

"This is too scary." She said. Her voice shuddered as much as her body as he slid under the thin sheet next to her. His skin touching hers chased away the cold and even a little of the need to be hurt. It was too scary. She wasn't sure she could do this. Loving and trusting someone was alien.

Sophia was the one exception to that and even that trust was limited. The love she felt for Soph wasn't though. Neither was the love she felt for her Victor. Somehow he'd conquered her heart, pummeled through the stone wall she'd built there and now, now he was making promises. She slid her skin closer to his and closed her eyes as another tremor ripped through her. Can I do this? Can he? She didn't know the answers but she did know something that surprised her very much. She wanted to try. She hungered to try. Maybe she could know a little of Sophia's sunshine world for once, was that possible?

She turned the now closed knife in her right hand. It was against her leg like a delicious promise. Another darker hunger grew, if she only wasn't so tired and too weak to make it happen. No, that's not safe for the baby if there is a damned baby. What in the hell will I do with a baby? She wondered. She dropped the knife between them on the gurney. Her right leg slid against his ass.

"I'm so tired." She whispered. "Thank you." As she drifted off, she thought vaguely of bright colorful rooms with baby furniture in it and pink cakes.

She dreamed she had taken a long hike. Her foot was hurting. She stopped for a while, resting on a large moss covered rock. She looked out at the vista and smiled at the wooded canyon spread before her like a bowl begging to be saved and filled.

Taking off her right shoe she pulled a pebble from it. This was the source of her pain. Her foot was bleeding. She kissed the pebble and let it sail away into the canyon.

Snow began to fall. She heard a rattle. A deadly rattle snake was right beside the rock. She waited for it to bite her or at least try but instead it spoke.

"Help me." It hissed.

"Why should I? You are poison. Everyone knows what a rattlesnake does."

"Not this time. I need your help to survive. It's getting cold I will freeze. Please put me in your belly and keep me safe."

"You'll kill me if I do. You'll bite me and kill me."

"I won't. I only want to survive."

Slowly she reached down to the snake. Tears were dripping from her eyes and the snake was shedding blood tears. She petted the snake. It didn't try to bite. It shivered under her hand. It didn't feel slimy at all, it felt good.

"Okay if you promise not to hurt me." She said. She picked up the snake and put it in her belly. There she kept it warm and safe until she was down the mountain. When she was around the campfire that night, the snake began to emerge from her stomach. It hurt! Oh how painful it was, like a knife of fire in her belly. In agony she watched as many smaller snakes followed the first. When they were all out and her abdomen was ruined, she became angry.

"You hurt me! You promised not to but you hurt me anyway and I helped you."

The snake hissed a laugh.

"I had to protect my babies. You did help. I thank you. Here is a gift." Then the snake bit her. The poison raced to her heart.

"Why? You promised." She screamed.

"You knew what I was when you helped me. This will stop your pain, ALL your pain!" The snaked snickered loudly as she slithered off with her babies.

She woke up screaming, "Why? You promised."

She woke up knowing she had made the world a worse place. She woke up knowing she craved the snake's poison, the end of all pain of everything.

Gabi's dread filled her like a lead balloon dragging her down. She clutched at Tom as if he were the only solid ground around. Her tears were coming hot and wet. This isn't me, she thought, but it was.

 

[poohlive]

"So we wait here a week. No big deal. It's not like the world is going anywhere. I'm sure it'll still need saving when we are fully rested. There's a boat at the dock, I think your mom left it. I don't know why your father would."

He took her hand in hers, smiling, happy. She might not have made a decision, but she was on the brink of one.

"This is paradise, even if it is tainted. Let us stay. There is tons of food, and a pool, and... we can lounge around all day, eat a feast every night, get drunk and fuck until the sun rises. It will be a vacation, a long deserved week where you can take everyone else's responsibility off your shoulders, get your head straight, think, and relax. Once the week's up, once Gabrielle is rested then we can go after your father. We can go after anyone you want."

His lips taking hers. A soft kiss, a wandering kiss. It lingered on his lips, as he could do nothing more than smile.

"I'll always be with you Sophia. Thick of thin, hard or soft. I am always here."

 

[RedHairedandFriendly]

Sophia leaned against Reese and signed. She was tired, not really wanting to do anything at the moment. She took his hand and toyed with his fingers, eventually finding his strength welcoming. She loved him, this was without a doubt something she knew to be true, she just had to adjust to this new part of him, this part that was Reese before he’d been trained to be a lethal weapon. She envied that part, wanted to hold onto it and bask in it, she prayed someday she would be allowed to.

Rising from the beach she smiled down at him. “A week then,” she told him and waited for him to rise up. She thought of the next seven days, and hoped they would be enough for Gabi to recover and enough for them to learn whatever they could about her father and perhaps each other.

She let the breeze lift her hair from her shoulders and swept it from her face. “Let’s go get some rest, and perhaps in a week we’ll all have the answers we so desperately seek.”

 

[FurryFury]

There once was a week in which Gabi didn't have to fight to save the world. A week in which she was loved by her man, by her sister and she loved them back. It was surreal. She wasn't comfortable with it at all. She kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. She kept waiting for Reese to do something normal for him. This new Reese would be fab in the real world but in the spy world, he was dangerously naive seeming.

Gabrielle suggested to Sophia that the treatment given the Victor of her heart his balls back could cure Reese's mental condition as well. She wasn't sure if she should tie Reese down and beat some sense into him but he was Sophia's man. It still rankled a little that he was. That alone was motive for her beating the crap out of him. She missed being a hard ass. She wasn't comfortable with the new softer Gabi.

She wasn't comfortable with being taken care of by Tom, her Victor. She wanted to be hurt. She itched for it constantly. She wanted to hurt him too. Despite all that they managed a nice peaceful week of recovery, mostly because they both needed it so badly.

The baby if there was one, a fact she wondered about more and more each day, must be growing too. She had yet to feel it move inside her. Gabrielle had no knowledge of how to test for pregnancy with what they had. All she knew was that the morning sickness wasn't confined to just mornings and she was more terrified than she had ever been. What if the baby wasn't okay? What if there was no baby and she was simply sick? What if the thing that had allowed a baby to grow inside her had also warped it into something else?

No way I'm cut out to be a mother, she thought to herself. She'd look at Sophia and think that her sister was far better suited to being a sweet light in a child's life. Gabi and Tom were just about the most warped fucked up candidates for parenthood she could think of.

Any sharp object called to her like a cool drink. She wanted Tom to take her, hurt her. She wanted to do the same for him. Could they even last long enough to let the child be born? Raising the child was a whole other thing, she could not imagine it but could they let the child grow healthy long enough? She honestly didn't know. Part of her felt that was too much for them. Part of her wanted the picket fence, cookies baking in the oven and childish shrieks of joy in their lives.

Of course that was if the world was even worth living in. Her fears for the world ticked like a bomb in her heart. Daddy could have sold the cure to the bad guys by now while the good guys continued to die. Mommy could have found Daddy, fucked him, helped him or killed him and they wouldn't know it.

Gabi couldn't wait to leave. She couldn't wait to get back into the routine of killing again. She needed the world on her shoulders to push her doubts down and out. She took Tom's hand and sucked on his middle finger. Her eyes looked sad and worried nonetheless, she was determined to remember this week. It was almost over. Soon they would be able to fuck again. Soon they would be able to leave. Back in the world, what would they find?