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Warnings: Rape Memory of Love “He’s mad. Completely mad.” As always, Helen sounded so completely reasonable, so sure that her listener would agree with her that Cutter almost fell into her trap again. He opened the door wide. “You might as well come in,” he sighed. Helen smiled and brushed past him, and Cutter pulled back as her breasts pressed against his chest for a moment. When her eyes widened, he smirked and gestured for her to precede him into the sitting room. “Go along, then,” he said quietly. “I’ll put on some tea.” When he returned, she was sprawled on the sofa with one hand bracing her head and the other fiddling with the top button on her shirt, staring into the fire. Cutter shook his head. “Helen, don’t bother.” “You’re rejecting me?” She sounded lost and hopeless. She’d even managed to paste a soft and vulnerable expression on her face as she looked at him. Cutter stared at her, not quite believing what he was seeing. He almost looked around for a rabbit hole before managing to pull himself together. “You rejected me years ago,” he replied harshly. “I’m simply returning the favour. Now, drink your tea and tell me what you want this time. I’m through with games. The first obfuscation out of your mouth, and your arse will be bouncing off the front steps.” Gaping at him, she sat up quickly. At first he thought she was going to stalk out of the house in anger, but after a minute of what looked like very deep thought, she relaxed and her lips curled in what could only charitably be called a smile. “All right, Nick. If that’s how you want to play this.” “I told you, I’m not playing. No more games.” Cutter sat across from her and handed her a cup of tea. “Now. You have the length of this cuppa to convince me I shouldn’t simply turn you over to the authorities.” He grinned internally at her sudden look of complete befuddlement. It felt very good to finally have caught her wrong-footed after all the times she’d played him. Now it was his turn. He leaned back, relaxed, and gazed at her with an expression that he hoped would convey boredom. It worked. He watched with suppressed glee as her lips tightened and her face hardened when she realised that she’d finally arrived at the end of his patience. She dropped her cup onto the table with a clack. “All right,” she said shortly. “We both have a problem. And I’m the only one who can help you. You’re the only one who can help me.” Cutter sighed ostentatiously and circled his hand in a ‘get on with it’ movement. “And?” Eyes narrow and face vicious, she snapped, “The man who’s been stalking Stephen is a Tom Ryan from another timeline. His world was destroyed by an incursion of future predators. He’s mad. He blames me simply because he saw me go through an anomaly.” Cutter grunted. “Yeah, and he’s after Stephen because he hates you. Pull the other one, Helen.” When she stood and moved over to sit beside him, Cutter raised an eyebrow and unhurriedly switched over to the other sofa, thus staying out of her reach. He had to suppress a grin of victory when she looked completely confused. Allowing one side of his mouth to rise into a smirk, he simply cocked his head to the side, giving her time to stew. Her shoulders slumped. He couldn’t tell whether it was real or put on, but she was definitely having trouble keeping her usual level of control in this situation. “Okay,” she said softly. “He’s after Stephen because of our past.” She glanced sideways at Cutter, and he couldn’t help but stiffen at her deliberate reminder of their affair; but when her lips curved in the beginnings of what had to be a triumphant smile, he laughed harshly. “Right. A total stranger knows about your past with Stephen. You really are pulling out all the stops, aren’t you?” “Damn it, Nick!” she exclaimed. “I’m not joking! He’s after Stephen first, then he’ll come after you, then he’s going to try to kill me!” She jumped to her feet and started pacing. “He doesn’t know about the affair. He doesn’t know I’m not with either Stephen or you. He thinks I work with the ARC, and he thinks the ARC is to blame for his timeline’s destruction, and he’s going to take it down one person at a time.” Cutter waved her back to her seat, leaned back and thought carefully, ignoring the provocative pose Helen had automatically arranged herself into. If she was telling the truth, they needed to find out where the duplicate Ryan was and take care of him. If she was lying, they had to put a stop to whatever plans she had in mind. And to do that, they needed her close by. “All right,” he said firmly. “We can’t take care of the problem here. We should talk to Lester and the Special Forces contingent; if this man is as dangerous as he seems, we need to make plans.” He didn’t miss the quick flare of excitement in her eyes. She was definitely trying something on. He pretended he hadn’t noticed anything, and she nodded. “Yes,” she said. “But I need a guarantee that you’re not going to throw me into a cell. I want surety that I can leave after I tell them everything I know about this.” “I’ll call Lester,” Cutter said. “Give me a minute.” He walked out of the room for a little privacy on the call. He wasn’t worried about leaving Helen alone in the sitting room; there was nothing there that would help her, and he was going to watch the doorway so she couldn’t slip out. It took some fast talking and a smidgeon of profanity before Lester reluctantly agreed to allow Helen to leave when they were done. The head of the ARC did insist that he could keep her if they could prove she wasn’t telling them everything. Cutter had no compunctions about agreeing with that stipulation. He was tired of Helen playing them, too. He sighed sadly at that thought. xXx Helen kept her eyes open as she was escorted across the main atrium of the ARC. They’d been met at the doors by a pair of security guards, and she had to smile as they walked a pace behind her. They felt more like an entourage for her than a defence against her. Squaring her shoulders, she slowed her walk to a saunter, working on keeping them at a disadvantage as she took note of every change in the huge room, every guard posted, every entrance and exit. She was going to need every edge she could generate if she was going to succeed. “Mrs. Cutter.” Helen brought her attention back to the man now standing in front of her at the entrance to the conference room. One day she would see him brought down. And she would truly enjoy it. For now, she contented herself with the kind of sigh that was usually given to a backward child. “Doctor Cutter, Mister Lester.” And one day, she would see that smirk wiped from his face. She walked into the room, adding a little extra sway to her hips and shoulders as she passed the man, with the chair at the head of the table her destination. She was going to control this meeting, and she needed to show them that right away. The raised eyebrow from Lester and the slack jaw from Nick signalled her victory. Helen smiled. “Please, gentlemen, sit,” she said, waving a nonchalant hand across the table. Then Lester’s amused reaction pulled her up short. She’d almost forgotten that he used to be what Nick called a ‘government hatchet man’. Nick was easy enough to manipulate, even if he did occasionally stick in his toes, but Lester was a different story entirely. She’d have to watch her step with him. She softened her smile. “Thank you for seeing me,” she said softly. “Well?” Lester said snidely as he sat and nodded his head for Cutter to do the same. Helen narrowed her eyes. So, Nick was following his orders still, was he? That was something to take into account for the future. For now, it was show time. “I’m really sorry. In a way, this is my fault. This man, this ‘Ryan’. If he hadn’t seen me pass through an anomaly and followed me, we wouldn’t be having this problem.” “Tell us something we don’t know.” Lester sounded bored. “Where is he?” “I don’t know.” Helen infused her voice with as much sincerity as she could. “He disappeared right after he threatened me.” Lester snorted. “And so, exactly how are you supposed to help us?” Cocking her head and widening her eyes in a move that had always worked on Nick, she shrugged slightly. “I’m here for your help, or didn’t Nick tell you that?” Cutter’s sniff and Lester’s raised eyebrow and amused chuckle let her know that she was in trouble. “Professor Cutter has given me all the information I need,” Lester replied sharply as he stood. “If you have nothing new to tell us, this interview is over.” Damn. Helen thought quickly. This wasn’t going to plan; they were supposed to try to coax information out of her. She needed time, and just one small piece of data. “Wait. Stephen and Ryan, where are they? They need to be guarded. They’re in great danger.” Cutter came to her rescue, as she’d known he would. “They’re at home. They’re safe,” he said quickly, missing Lester’s aborted move to stop him speaking. Interesting. Lester was definitely quicker on the uptake than Nick. But even he didn’t have a clue that they’d just given her exactly what she needed. She sighed with fabricated relief as she slipped one hand into a pocket. It was the work of only a second to signal her Ryan that his mission was a go. Now all she had to do was extract herself. Her Ryan should have Stephen waiting for her by the time she returned to her base. Unfortunately, it wasn’t going to be that simple. Lester frowned at her and walked out, gesturing for Cutter to precede him. “Doctor Cutter,” he said dryly, “I’m sure you won’t have a problem waiting here while we discuss the extremely helpful information you’ve given us so freely.” The guards stayed by the door, one inside, one outside, looking at her looking at them. Helen sighed. It had been much easier when it was just Nick she had to deal with. xXx “Shit!” Ryan’s voice echoed into the hallway. Even before the tinkle of the broken window sounded in his ears, Stephen saw him dive for the floor through the smoke billowing from the canister that was bouncing across the carpet. Stephen dropped the plate of sandwiches he’d been carrying and whirled around to run, only to come face to face with one of his recurring nightmares. The Cleaner clone behind him swung hard, and Stephen’s head was slammed against the wall, pain from his temple and the back of his skull combining to send his senses into a tailspin. He barely heard the shots as he slid down the wall, consciousness oozing out of his mind like the blood seeping across the floor from Ryan’s now prone and motionless body. xXx Lester tapped his chin as Cutter started demanding answers. “Why haven’t you asked her more?” the Scotsman raged. “She’s bloody hiding something, and you know it!” “Indeed,” Lester replied calmly. “And if you think she’ll give a straight answer to any questions, you’re even more delusional about her than you normally are.” Lips pursed, he shook his head. “There’s something we’re missing.” Cutter stared at him, visibly bereft of speech. “Damn.” Lester spun to the guard outside the door. “Was she searched when she came in?” The guard gaped. “No, sir. She was with Professor Cutter. We didn’t think it was necessary.” Lester opened his mouth to blast the man into next week, then sighed. It was too late, anyway. “Search her,” he ordered calmly. When the man simply stared, he raised his eyebrows and gestured to the room. “Now.” “What is it?” Cutter asked him, having managed to regain control. They watched as the guards yanked Helen to her feet and emptied out her many pockets. Lester kept his eyes on her face rather than the men’s hands. When they pulled a mobile phone from her right trouser pocket, he knew they had something. She looked furious and actually made an aborted grab for it. “Bring that here,” he called. He opened the lid and checked the text message history. “This is what we missed,” he said as he showed the last message to Cutter. It said, R hm now. “Bloody hell,” Cutter whispered, then he turned and ran. Lester pulled out his mobile and hit the first number. “Jon, get a team to Ryan’s house, now. Helen’s pulled a fast one.” He stared at Helen, who was standing by the table with an amused look on her face. xXx Stephen stood, tied to a post and unable to move, listening as the man who wore his lover's face raged around the basement. “You're so special to all of them. She took me, you know. Took me from my place. I had a home, a family, people I loved and who loved me. I had a wife, a daughter, and she destroyed them. And then she told me I had to go with her, I had to help her.” The man snarled and threw a chair across the basement. “No way. She doesn't own me, I owe her nothing.” His head snapped around to stare at Stephen. “No, I owe her retribution. And that other. That other me. He still has what he wants, he still has what he loves. He doesn't deserve that. So I'll take you. I'll take you from her, and from him.” Stephen shook, leaning weakly against his bonds. The man who wore his lover's face was completely mad. The grey eyes, normally so clear, so steady and warm when they looked at him were now the grey of a stormy sea, cold and harsh and full of danger. Horrified, frightened, Stephen shuddered, twisting his wrists to try to free himself. Unable to sign, he shook his head and mouthed desperately, “No. She tried to kill me. she doesn't want me.” The man who wore his lover's face peered at him and then laughed jerkily, showing that he’d managed to catch just enough of what Stephen was trying to convey. “Oh, she wants you. She might say she doesn't, but she really does. Cutter, she can't be sure she can control any more. But you, she has something on you; I don't know what it is, but she has you. So I'll hand her your body.” Stephen cringed, eyes squeezed shut, despising himself. The man who wore his lover's face might be mad, but he was right. Helen did own Stephen; he might hate her, but he had no control over his physical response to her. The man who wore his lover's face stopped and looked at him with a crooked, hungry smile. “On second thought. Just a dead body doesn't send enough of a message.” He moved closer like a stalking lion. Whatever control he’d had the other times he’d hunted Stephen, it was gone now, his expression evidence that he’d slipped over the line between obsession and complete madness. Stephen gazed at him sadly, shoulders drooping, not even wondering what was going to happen next. He already knew. His fear had tripped his pheromone response, but he wasn't sure he could even bring himself to care. This man who wore his lover's face, this Other, had broken him in a way that Helen never could have, with all her games. xXx “Jesus fuck,” Lyle whispered as the team entered Ryan’s house, weapons ready. The place still smelled of smoke, but there was a coppery undertone to the scent that had them all on edge. Blade slid through the sitting room door and crouched down beside the body lying at the entrance. “Cleaner clone, boss,” he said softly. “Dead. Shot.” “Spread out, check the rest of the place,” Lyle ordered as he moved into the sitting room. The smell of smoke was strongest in here, and he looked around. The smoke canister was lying on the floor under the coffee table, and there were two more Cleaner clones, both dead by the window. “Shit, Ditzy, we need an ambulance!” Finn’s voice from the kitchen sounded frantic. Lyle ran, absently noting a trail of blood that started at the sitting room door and snailed its way into the kitchen. He slammed to a stop in the kitchen doorway, cursing as he saw another dead Cleaner clone and the body of their captain on the floor. “He’s alive, but he’s in bad shape,” Ditzy said softly, pressing a towel onto Ryan’s abdomen. “He’s been shot; lower right quadrant. He’s bled a lot. Ambulance is on its way.” Lyle nodded, frowning. There was another slide of blood down the wall of the corridor right outside the kitchen, beside the shards of a plate that had been carrying what looked like a couple of Stephen’s specialty bacon butties. But no Stephen. Crap. “Anyone see Stephen anywhere?” he called. The ‘Negatives’ echoed from all rooms as the rest of the team finished their search. Five dead Cleaner clones, a badly wounded Tom Ryan, and no Stephen Hart. Lyle looked at Cutter, who had entered the house at the all clear and was staring at the blood on the wall, his expression blankly horrified. The lieutenant really wasn’t looking forward to making this report. xXx “What did she do to you?” the Other whispered into Stephen’s ear as his hands charted Stephen’s body. “How did she make you into this?” Stephen shivered as the Other pulled a knife and slowly slit through the seams on his shirt, baring him to the cool, dank air of the basement. Scraps of material slithered down his skin, leaving gooseflesh behind and silent strangled sobs caught in his throat. He shook his head in negation, eyes squeezed shut to avoid looking into the cold, mad eyes that were the exact image of his lover’s. Oh, God; Ryan. Stephen bit his lip as the memory of seeing Ryan’s motionless body on their sitting room floor flashed into his mind. His lover was probably dead. Gone. Stephen was alone now. Alone with the memory, alone with a future of either death or a lifetime as Helen’s toy. He opened his eyes and stared blankly ahead as the Other scratched and squeezed, feeling him, stroking him, touching him in a filthy parody of Ryan’s loving caresses. When the Other lifted his legs and breached him, he allowed the blackness to overcome him and sank into oblivion with relief.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
“Sorry for the interruption, sir, but Captain Ryan was being a trifle intransigent.” Lieutenant Owen’s tone matched the sarcasm of his words. “He woke up from surgery, and wasn’t about to stay in bed. We had to sedate him again. He’ll be fine, but he can’t move about too much for the next day or so. The bullet wound wasn’t life-threatening, but he does have a concussion.” Lester squeezed the bridge of his nose, wondering idly whether his head was actually going to explode or if it simply felt that way. He stared through the conference room window at Helen Cutter, who was sitting in the chair at the head of the table with a slight smile on her face. As he watched, she yawned and leaned back, completely relaxed. “Damn.” Lester turned his back to the window and crossed his arms. “So, we still don’t know what happened.” Moving up to stand beside Lester and stare hard-eyed at Helen, Lyle grunted. “Yes, we do. He woke up for a few minutes in the ambulance and told me. A half-dozen or so Cleaner clones and a bloke who wore Ryan’s own face but with an even more constipated expression blew through the front door. They shot our Ryan, piled on him and knocked him out, and by the time he woke up the place was overly burdened with dead bodies and suffering from a distinct lack of Stephen Hart.” Lester sighed. There were times when he found his lover’s colourful manner of speech quite entertaining. This wasn’t one of them. “So, Helen sent a bunch of clones to Ryan’s house. And for some reason, the Cleaner clones that she sent are now all dead, presumably killed by the Ryan clone she sent, and her Ryan clone has taken Stephen away, leaving the real Ryan wounded but alive. In what bizarre world does any of that make sense?” Off Lyle’s snort of derision, Lester sighed. “That was rhetorical, Jon. But I suppose you have a suggestion to make?” he asked, almost afraid of the answer. “Yes, I do,” Lyle replied, staring him straight in the eyes. “Let me ‘talk’ to her, find out where her base is. I’ll even promise to leave her more or less in a single piece.” Lester stared back, charting the determination and throttled-down incandescent fury in Lyle’s eyes. With the current situation, they would have one chance, and one chance only, to recover Stephen Hart alive. The decision was truly a no-brainer. The only way they could recover their lost tracker was to find out where Helen Cutter was staying. And the only way to find out quickly where Helen was staying would be to unleash Jon Lyle on her. Lester nodded and stepped aside, catching Cutter’s quick movement of protest out of the corner of his eye before the professor subsided, eyes on the floor. Interesting. Even Cutter seemed to have had enough of his ex-wife’s machinations. The lieutenant’s smile would have given a tiger shark pause for reflection. It certainly upped Lester’s heart rate as he followed Lyle into the conference room. And it also forced him to suppress his own smile when he saw the expression on Helen Cutter’s face. She quite obviously remembered the last time she’d played games with Jon Lyle. She stared at Lester. “You wouldn’t dare!” she spat. Lester simply raised an eyebrow and closed the blinds. “You bring this on yourself, Helen,” he said quietly. “Jon doesn’t give a flying fuck about you, but he does care a lot about Ryan and Stephen. I would suggest that you be a trifle more cooperative than you have been up to now.” Ignoring the expression on Lyle’s face at his unusual descent into profanity, he turned to the door. “Please don’t take too much time, Lieutenant. We can’t leave the security monitors off for long.” With a tiny twitch of a smile, Lester pulled the cable from the camera and walked out the door. Three minutes later, Jon Lyle also walked out the door, and nodded to Lester. Lester motioned Ditzy to take care of Helen, who was still sitting in the same chair although she was now trembling and looking vaguely green. Face hard, the medic strode in, opened the blinds and sat down facing her. Watching as Helen shook her head at whatever Ditzy was asking, Lester took a deep breath. “Please tell me you got what we needed, Jon.” “I did. She’s based at a house out in the country. I got the address. We good to go?” Lester nodded. “Go. Bring him back.” Lyle took off like a scalded cat, and Lester sauntered into the conference room. Lyle had made a good job of things; there wasn’t a physical mark on Helen. Her eyes told a different story, though. “You think you’re superior?” she snarled half-heartedly, getting a bit more colour back. “What’s so much better and cleaner about what your attack dog just did?” Lester forced himself to chuckle past his own nausea. “You’re the kidnapper, Helen. We don’t have to think anything.” He motioned to Ditzy, who was standing, stone-faced, beside Helen’s chair. “Take her to the cells. We’ll decide what to do with her once we find out what condition Stephen Hart is in.” His amusement became a bit more real as he watched the colour drain from her face a second time. xXx Stephen opened his eyes and stared dully across the basement, feeling the wetness trickling down his thighs. The Other zipped his trousers and hummed to himself as he wandered around the room, picking up and discarding various tools. The cold, dank air caressed Stephen’s body as the Other had done, and Stephen shivered. He couldn’t tell whether it was colder in the room or inside his heart. When the Other picked up an axe handle and hefted it in his hand before turning around with a smile, Stephen closed his eyes again and simply hoped that the end would be quick. It wasn’t. Blow after blow landed on his body, hard enough to bruise badly, but not hard enough to do irreparable damage, at least not yet. From the soles of his feet to his shoulders, every square centimetre of him began to hurt. The Other’s comment about ‘sending a message’ had been the truth. And the message was going to be written on Stephen’s body in black and blue, in blood pooling under his crushed skin in stripes. The world was receding, slowly pulling in from the sides as blackness encroached. His vision wasn’t fading, it was narrowing into a tunnel down which the only thing Stephen could see was the man who wore his lover’s face as he pulled his arm back to strike the ultimate blow. The intent expression told Stephen that the end had finally arrived, but all he could feel was relief. His body was numb from the cold and the repeated blows, he wanted nothing more than for this to be over. He closed his eyes. A sudden noise behind the Other made Stephen’s eyelids crack open, and the tunnel behind his eyes opened just enough for him to see the ARC Special Forces team as they poured into the room. The gunshots were deafening; the Other in front of him jerked like a marionette as he tried to spin around and reach for his own gun. He failed, and his bullet-ridden body crumpled to the floor with Stephen’s numb gaze following it down. Wide-eyed, he tried to make sense of what was happening as the voices over-rode each other in disjointed phrases. “Fuck, that’s the boss!” “Oh, crap, I’m gonna be sick.” “Anyone hurt?” “Nah.” “Nope.” “Jesus, he really does look just like the captain.” “He dead?” “Yeah.” Stephen stared into Ditzy’s eyes as the medic stepped up to him and reached out. He smiled, and allowed himself to collapse into Ditzy’s arms, allowed the darkness to take him under to a place where there was no more pain. xXx Two hours later, bandaged and smelling of a multitude of ointments, he woke up at the ARC medical centre, disorientated and confused. He heard a rustling noise, and turned to see Tom Ryan asleep in a bed right beside him. He froze. Was this his Ryan, or was this the Other? His Ryan was dead; he’d seen the body at their house. Hadn’t he? Eyes wide and fixed on the man, he tried to slide off the side of his bed to hide. He couldn’t take any chances. The moment he sat up and started moving, though, his head started spinning and he heard the machines beside him start to sound some sort of alarm. Terrified, he froze again and watched as the man opened his eyes and looked at him. “Stephen.” The rough voice sounded as if it hadn’t spoken in days. “Thank God.” Stephen stayed still, watching warily as the man’s expression melted from thankfulness to confusion. “Stephen?” Ditzy’s voice sounded from the corridor even before he strode into the room. “It’s okay, Stephen, you’re home. That is our Ryan; he was shot at your house but he’ll be okay.” Ditzy’s smile and gentle touch reassured him, and Stephen turned to look at Ryan nervously. How would the soldier take his reaction? Quite well, it seemed. The look of relief on Ryan’s face smothered Stephen’s fear. “Yeah, it’s me, blue-eyes,” Ryan said softly, reaching out across the space between their beds. “They tell me that Fiver puked when he saw that it looked like they’d shot me dead in that basement.” He grinned at Stephen. “You ready to help me tease him?” Stephen smiled tentatively, but shook his head, just a little. I was ready to puke the entire time I had to look at him, he signed. I’m not going to hassle Fiver about it. Ryan chuckled. “Okay. Point taken.” He turned to Ditzy, who was completing Stephen’s IV changeover. “When do I get to see myself?” The medic growled. “Told you before, boss. You don’t. There’s no sodding need for it.” Pouting ostentatiously, Ryan held out his hand again, and this time Stephen took it with a smile. He curled up and stared at Ryan, mapping every feature and expression. Once he was done, he tugged the hand he was clutching closer and rested his cheek on it. Within seconds his eyelids fluttered closed and his breathing evened out into a restful sleep. He was out before he could notice the relieved smiles passing between Ryan and Ditzy. xXx Early the next afternoon, Lester returned from a morning of rather productive meetings at the Home Office to find alarms ringing and people running around looking as if they were taking part in some sort of a maniacal square dance. He headed to his office and found Lieutenant Lyle waiting for him. “Helen Cutter has escaped,” Lyle growled, looking furious. “She what? God damn it!” Lester very seldom lost his temper, but this time he felt justified in not only losing his temper, but in practically chasing it out of the room as if it were a diictodon nesting under his desk. “How many times is that bloody woman going to simply walk out of this place like she’s invisible?” Taking a deep breath, he glared at Lyle. Hands fisted, Lyle ground out in a tone that almost made Lester shiver, “Medical had been running some tests on her, and one of the med-techs fell for her line about being really hungry. He brought her a meal without having a guard with him, and she knocked him out and scarpered. Stupid son of a bitch has one big bastard of a headache; he was out for almost ten minutes.” “He deserves it,” Lester growled. Then his anger deflated like a punctured balloon. “Oh, well, his stupidity has taught him a lesson, I hope.” Lyle grinned evilly. “He not only has the headache, but he’s also going to have Lieutenant Owen riding his arse for the foreseeable future. Ditzy isn’t pleased. And a displeased Ditzy is not someone I like to be around; especially if I’m the cause of the displeasure.” Lester chuckled weakly. “Yes, I presume there are going to be some interesting repercussions.” He leaned back in his chair. “And one other thing: the ‘kill on sight’ order is to be re-instated. She will not ever have the chance to pull anything like this again.” Lyle nodded. “Already done. Ryan’s up and about today, and he threw a most impressive tantrum when he found out. He was the first one to rip the idiot a new arsehole.” He laughed, all good humour restored. “The fellow hadn’t even had his concussion treated yet when Ryan started yelling. They had to bring Stephen in to calm the good captain down enough to even let the poor bugger get out of the room.” Lyle’s smile reminded Lester of the one he’d shown Helen, all teeth and icy eyes. “Whereupon he immediately fell into the tender cold hands of our dear unit medic.” The mental pictures created by that story made Lester sit down fairly quickly and change the subject. “Ah, please tell me that we managed to finish the sweep of her house before she sauntered unimpeded out of this supposedly high security facility?” “We did,” Lyle replied. “And we’re going through everything with a fine-tooth comb as I speak. And there was quite a bit - I think she’s been using that house as a base for a while.” “Interesting,” Lester said musingly, then sat up briskly. “Let me know if you find anything.” Lyle grinned and nodded. “Will do. And Ryan and Stephen have been okayed to head home tonight.” Lester opened his mouth, but his words were forestalled by Lyle’s grinning continuation. “Blade’s going to run guard in the back yard, and Finn’ll be sitting in a car across the street. No one’s getting in.” “Thanks, Jon,” Lester said. “I should have known you’d be on top of it.” He waved Lyle out and stared unhappily at the mound of paperwork that had multiplied since last evening in his inbox. Tripping the intercom, he said sourly, “Lorraine, more coffee, please; my paperwork’s been breeding overnight again.” Her soft chuckle soothed his nerves as he pulled the first folder from the pile. xXx Stephen wandered restlessly around their bedroom as Ryan took the second shower. Even though he was clean - very well scrubbed, indeed - he still couldn’t shake off the slight feeling of griminess that clung to him in his mind. He was standing at the window, gazing out into the moonlit road, smiling softly as he watched Finn’s profile moving alertly in the car across the street, when he felt Ryan’s hands tentatively settle on his shoulders. He had to brace himself quickly to avoid shrugging them off, not because he didn’t trust his lover, but because he didn’t trust himself. “Are you okay?” Ryan’s voice was as soft as his grip as he turned Stephen to face him. Fighting to meet Ryan’s gaze without cringing, Stephen took a deep breath and slowly, deliberately relaxed. He repeated in his mind over and over again, like a mantra, “it wasn’t my fault, it wasn’t my fault, it wasn’t my fault” until he almost believed it. He nodded. Okay. Ryan’s return smile was a little twisted. “Yeah, about as okay as I am, then.” That pulled a silent chuckle from Stephen as he leaned forward to rest his head on Ryan’s shoulder and wrap his arms slowly around his lover’s waist. He shivered at the contact, and then felt Ryan shudder in return as he folded his arms around Stephen and drew him close. They held each other, not moving, not speaking, simply being close and allowing themselves to breathe the same air and feel the heat between their bodies. Ryan was the first to move away, sliding out of Stephen’s arms, taking his hand and towing him to the bed. When Stephen balked a little, he turned and stroked his face. “Only what we want,” he whispered. Stephen nodded shakily. I can do that, he signed, and Ryan chuckled in return, moving close to kiss him softly. When he pulled slowly away, Stephen found himself following, searching unconsciously for a renewal of the contact. Ryan flipped the duvet away, and they sank together onto the mattress, still close, still holding on. Doing nothing, Stephen lay beside Ryan, allowing the heat and strength of his lover to seep into him, minute by minute. When he finally felt warm enough, he sat up and traced the planes of Ryan’s face with his fingers. As he ran his hands across Ryan’s lips, they opened. When his fingers slid inside Ryan’s mouth, he felt the teeth nibbling gently at the tips, the tongue laving the edges of his nails, and he shook, desire crashing through him. Without allowing another second to pass, Stephen bent and sealed his mouth to Ryan’s, tongue sliding slowly forward to tangle with the other man’s, tasting, caressing, joining them together. When he sat up, breathing hard, he could see Ryan’s chest rising and falling as quickly as his own. He heard Ryan groan, “Oh, God, Stephen,” as the other man pulled him back down, tucked Stephen’s head into his shoulder and held him hard. “I thought I’d lost you. I can’t lose you. Not again.” Stephen allowed Ryan to hold him for a few minutes, but when the other man stopped shaking, Stephen sat up. You won’t lose me, he signed. I won’t let that happen. He smiled crookedly. With your job, I’m more likely to lose you. Ryan snorted. “That’s what you’d think,” he said sourly, stroking Stephen’s face. “But you, blue-eyes, you seem to attract trouble like a sodding magnet.” He sat up slowly, abs clenching in a way that went straight to Stephen’s groin. “The last few times, it’s been you in the firing line.” Stephen shrugged. Not much we can do about that - it’s been bloody Helen every time. He leaned forward and kissed Ryan’s mouth firmly. Now, are you planning on showing me how happy you are that I’m okay, or are you going to force me to seduce you? Pleased that Ryan returned a shocked look, a guffaw, and a hug that squashed enough bruises to make him wince, Stephen lay back on the bed and handed Ryan his most seductive look. I’m tired and bruised up. I think it’s time you did a little of the work. Ryan upped the ante with puppy-dog eyes. “But I’m wounded,” he said in a tone that had enough of a whine in it to make Stephen’s cock harden rapidly. “I have a hole in my side.” Stephen snorted. You have a hole in your head. Then he chuckled silently. But okay. You win. Sliding close and turning to face Ryan, Stephen reached out and found, to his complete non-surprise, that Ryan’s cock was as hard as his own. He tangled their legs together to push their groins hard into each other, and when Ryan gasped and his grey eyes went wide, Stephen squeezed their cocks together and started stroking; long, hard, slow strokes from the bases to the tips. When Ryan started whispering soft curses and his hips started twitching, Stephen grinned and leaned close to bite the shoulder closest to him. The whispers turned to whimpers, and the whimpers became soft moans as Stephen varied the speed and strength of his strokes, adding a swipe of his thumb across the heads to gather the moisture there and rub it into the soft skin. After a few minutes, Stephen’s mind was drifting on a raft of pleasure, his hand moving faster and faster, each breath harder to draw as he reached for his climax. They came together, Ryan’s voice filling the room as Stephen shuddered through the shock of one of the hardest orgasms he’d ever had. He was still quivering when Ryan stilled his hand and pulled it to his mouth to lick it clean. “Fuck, Stephen, I hope Finn and Blade don’t come blasting in, thinking we’re being attacked.” Ryan’s voice was as shaky as Stephen felt. Stephen swiped his fingers through the pool of come on his belly and sucked them, watching as Ryan’s eyes darkened. He grinned happily, if still a little muzzily. I don’t think it’s a problem, since you were yelling my name. When Ryan blushed a little, he couldn’t resist adding, Blade will be fine, but I’ll bet you that Finn can’t look you in the eye tomorrow. Ryan laughed and pulled him down to drape across his body. “No bet. He blushes way too easily.” After a hesitation, he asked, “Are we okay?” Stephen snuggled close and thought about it. Yeah. We’re okay. He twisted his head to look directly into Ryan’s eyes. He wasn’t you. He smiled and mouthed, “I love you. Now go to sleep.” Closing his eyes, Stephen allowed himself to drift off as he felt Ryan running a warm flannel across his stomach. He didn’t even feel the gentle kiss that Ryan finished up with. Nor did he hear the soft, “Thank you,” that was whispered in his ear. xXx “Bloody hell,” Ryan stated, reading over the report. “I’m getting a fucking headache.” He rubbed his temples. “You’re telling me that this Other me was another one of her sodding clones? Not a me from an alternate timeline like Helen said? How the fuck did she get DNA from me?” Ditzy sighed. “According to the records we found in her house, she created him out of tissue she took from the body of a dead Captain Ryan she stumbled onto through another anomaly somewhere, sometime.” He gave Ryan a sympathetic look as the captain shivered. “Once she made him, he was stuck with her. She’d basically brought him back to life like she did Stephen, with all his memories. Remember the second lab? That one empty tube?” “Holy shit,” Lyle whispered. “That place with all the deformed things?” Ditzy nodded. “That’s it. Stephen was her first modified success, in her modern lab. This Ryan was the only one she managed to create in the more primitive setup; and she wasn’t able to modify him at all. He was alive and intelligent, but trapped. Unfortunately, his people didn’t know about the anomalies so he’d never be able to go home. He was dead there. He was alive here, but he’d lost everything. His wife, his daughter. His entire life. And he had Helen manipulating him.” Ryan ran his hand across his face, thinking about how he’d feel in the other man’s place. “No wonder the poor bastard went insane.” He felt a gentle touch on his arm, and turned to see Stephen looking carefully at him. “I don’t condone what he did to you, Stephen, but I do understand him losing his mind.” Stephen smiled slightly shakily, and signed, So do I. I was lucky; you knew about anomalies and Helen so I had a place. He didn’t. What I hate is that if he was a clone - He stopped and shrugged, unable to put his fears into words. “Christ, I hope she doesn’t have any more template tissue,” Lyle said seriously, catching Stephen’s meaning before anyone else. Ryan shivered in agreement. Once was bad enough. He turned to Ditzy, who shook his head. “We don’t think so. But with Helen, who the fuck knows what she has and where she has it?” the medic replied, reaching over in front of Ryan and closing the folder. End