The other ship's weapons landed another direct hit, pushing Robert against his safety harness. "Damage?", he asked.

As always, Jarod provided the status of their faltering shields. "Forty-five percent and holding."

"Looks like we've got their shields down to fifty-two percent," Caterina added.

"Still, this battle is too close, we need to do something to end it." Robert turned his attention back to the Avenger and the holotank depicting their positions as they fought. There was something about the way the Avenger was maneuvering that felt off. Was it something he could use for their advantage?

"Look at the way they're maneuvering," Julia said. "And their firing pattern. Their tactics are basic."

"Probably because they're like we were," Robert realized. "They know the basics, but they don't know how to use them. They're not trained or experienced in starship combat."

"Then maybe we should show them how it's done."

Julia was right. They had been reacting this whole time - their training and their experience gave them the better edge if they were the ones taking the initiative.

"Let's see how much they want their friend back," Robert said. "Nick, break orbit, full impulse. Take us on a course toward the asteroid belt."

"Aye sir."

The Aurora turned away from Earth and the Avenger at high acceleration. As the range opened up the fire from the Avenger became more and more inaccurate.

"Bridge to launch deck. Commander Laurent, I want all fighters prepped for launch within five minutes," Julia commanded.

"Immediately, Commander," Laurent replied.

"It looks like they're biting," Jarod said. "They're now at full impulse and doing everything they can to catch up to us."

"Are they?"

"At the moment, they've managed to keep us from opening more distance."

"Going by their power readings, I think they're trying to overpower their impulsor drives." Caterina turned at her station. "Okay, not trying. Definitely succeeding."

"They're starting to gain on us."

Robert and Julia exchanged confident looks. This was exactly what they had been hoping the Avenger crew would do.

"Just a little more time," he murmured.


Just a little more time… Hawk moved over to the next internal access tube, thinking ...just a little more time is what I need. These crawlways and walkways were, going by the data he picked up, primarily used as systems access in parts of the ship where normal access was not possible. Spaces between decks, between major bulkheads, that sort of thing.

But they also provided a way to move through the ship's decks with a reduced risk of detection.

Ordinarily internal sensors would make this nigh-impossible. But Hawk's nanites had taken care of that. The sensor systems were Darglan like they were, and with his commands they knew how to shield him from detection.

He finished climbing down one ladder and found himself on deck thirty-six. The secondary shuttle bay was nearby - his ticket off of this ship and back to his. It was time to leave the crawlspaces and get back into the proper area of the ship.

He spotted the security detachment just in time. "Hands up!", one of them declared, all holding their rifles up.

Hawk had been training for his next move. It was the hardest thing for him to do with the nanites in his body. Tendrils of silver emerged from each arm. At his mental command they surged forward and gripped the firearms in each guard's arms. In other circumstances Hawk could easily use the nanites to set the weapons to overload, getting rid of the problem easy enough, but he didn't like the thought of killing people who didn't have it coming in some way.

So he'd do it the hard way.

Or as Helen called it, the fun way.

With a yank he pulled the rifles out of the hands of his surprised foes. The alien leader among them - the two stripes apparently meant she was a Lieutenant, from what he'd seen - immediately went for her sidearm. Hawk rushed forward and punched the teal-skinned being in the jaw. He felt the bone break under his blow. His foe flew backward into her team.

Without a pause he turned and kicked out. Blood and teeth flew and a cry came from the Caucasian man who took Hawk's boot to his face.

The other security personnel were recovering. But not fast enough. Not nearly fast enough. Hawk's nanite-enhanced strength broke teeth and bones as he put them down with merciless - if non-lethal - swiftness. He smirked. It was the first time he'd taken on enemies without resorting to his blades in a long while. But he didn't want to risk killing anyone.

He heard the approaching runner. Superhumanly-fast as well… it was Meridina. He had to move.

Hawk started sprinting toward the shuttle bay, knowing he was almost out of time.


Kilometer by kilometer, the Avenger caught up to the Aurora. Her weapons started lashing out at her twin with deadly fury. Sapphire bolts played over the faltering blue energies of the Aurora's deflector shields.

On the Aurora's bridge, Robert could feel the tension in the others. He could feel the tension in his crew. The worry and rage from the other ship.

He checked the distance. So did Julia.

"Any moment…", she said, intent on the tactical view.

He gave it another few seconds. And then a few more. And then…

"Locarno, cut forward velocity, shift us to starboard! All power to port weapons! Launch all fighters!"

The fighters of the Aurora's flight wing started to erupt out of the launch tubes along the top-most deck of the ship's drive hull. As the fighters emerged Locarno went to work. The ship jinked to the right, hard, and forward movement was quickly reduced with the drives.

The Avenger crew were slow to react. Too intent upon the kill, not knowing the specifics of the other ship's capabilities, they made a reaction to adjust.

As they raced alongside the Aurora, Angel let them have it. The port weapons on Aurora's side opened up with amber fury, slamming the other ship's shields with repeated fire.

As this started to degrade Avenger's shields, Laurent and his fighters opened up with a barrage of solar torpedoes.

At short range.

The torpedoes started slamming into Avenger's overtaxed shields. Some hit the shields

But after the few dozen or so, the shields on the Avenger gave way to the onslaught. Explosions erupted along the primary and drive hulls of the colossal warship. As it passed by them, it was now bleeding atmosphere and debris from the dozen plus wounds the Aurora had inflicted.

But they were still fighting. They had also opened fire as they passed. More sapphire bolts slammed into the port shields of the Aurora, making the ship shake from the resulting damage and stress.

"Shields are now down to thirty-two percent." Jarod looked over his screens.

At the engineering station, a male Gersallian ensign named Mataran added another report. "Primary Shield Generator 2 is offline. Activating secondary generators to compensate."

"I'm picking up multiple hull breaches in the other ship. Their auto-repair systems are engaged, but I think we hit a few critical points." Caterina was looking over her sensor returns. "Their power signature is declining. And I'm picking up plasma leaking from their starboard nacelles. We may have disabled their warp drive."

Julia added, "Laurent's people are going to continue hitting them."

"Just what we needed." Robert leaned forward.

As he did, he noticed a new feeling for the first time. It was faint. A sense of urgency and fear and anger… and he could sense Meridina, always prominent in his new senses, and her power, readying for action.

"Hawk is free," he muttered.

"What?" Julia looked at him.

"Hawk is out," he said, more loudly this time. "Meridina's chasing him."

"Then he won't be out for long," Julia predicted.


The ship shuddered again as Hawk entered the secondary shuttle bay. Two security guards, both from the elven-eared species he'd seen, were waiting - a blue-skinned, teal-spotted man and a teal-skinned light-blue spotted woman. Hawk dodged their first shots with the benefit of his nanite-enhanced speed and returned fire with his stolen pulse pistol. The stun blast took out the man. The alien woman kept firing at him as he followed the wall toward a shuttle.

Hawk whipped his arm out. As he did, a stinging sensation filled his wrist. A single blade erupted from the sore spot and flew through the air until it embedded itself in the alien woman's shoulder. Blue blood surged from the wound. A cry of surprise and pain came from her and her gun fell to the ground, released by the spasms of pain going down her now-useless arm.

Before she could do anything else, Hawk shot her with a stun blast. She fell over, the nanite blade still sticking out of her shoulder.

He went up to her. The uniform was more protective than he'd thought; his nanite blade would have gone completely through her shoulder if it had been regular fabric. He reached down and touched the blade with nanite tendrils coming from his sore wrist. The nanites in the blade flowed up, red from the blood seeping down his hand. He grimaced. That throwing blade trick always made the wound worst. He was still unable to keep it from cutting unprepared areas of his flesh the way he could with just a normal blade.

Blue blood oozed from the wound. "Dammit", he muttered. Every moment he delayed, his escape became less likely. And it was already going to be a close shot.

But he didn't see a point in this alien dying. She wasn't a slaver or a criminal or some other scumbag, she was just an officer doing a job. And he didn't kill people who didn't have it coming.

...not usually, anyway.

"Dammit dammit dammit," he continued, reaching to his sleeve and tearing the cuff off. Once he had a large enough piece of fabric he tied it over the shoulder as a tourniquet. The blood flow slowed to a bare oozing of blue.

Good. He was done. Time to get….

He heard a metallic sound behind him. And a voice called out, "Surrender."

"Dammit," Hawk growled. He turned.

Meridina was at the entrance to the shuttle bay. Her blade was in her hand in a ready position.

"No good deed goes unpunished," he muttered.


Lucy had left Mataran for the bridge watch so she could perform Tom Barnes' usual job of being Scotty's number two man in Engineering. He had sent her to look over Primary Shield Generator 5 on Deck 28, toward the rear of the ship, which was showing increased strain from the firepower of the enemy ship.

That strain was eased by a few technical actions, energy re-alignments and the like, and Lucy was about to return to Main Engineering when she felt a terrible feeling in her… inner self, or life force aka swevyra as Meridina would put it.

She reached for the lakesh hilt on her hip, joined to the tools she kept on her tool belt, and ran off. "Lucero to Scott, Generator 5 is fine. I've got to check up on Meridina!"

"Lass, this isnae th' time tae be runnin' off on…"

"Trust me on this one, Scotty," Lucy pleaded. "She's going to need me." She got to one of the ladders on the deck and jumped on to climb further down. She didn't want to risk the lifts if something happened and power were lost.

For a moment she wondered if the old engineer would force her to choose between what she felt was needed and the orders she'd been given. Finally a reply came. "Alright, lass. Do what ye need tae do. I'll call ye if ye're needed."

"I won't be long," Lucy promised.

And as she climbed, she hoped she would get there in time.


The Aurora and Avenger continued to hammer away at each other - the latter's superior firepower clashing with the superior maneuverability of the former, augmented by the skill of Nicholas Locarno and under the direction of the best maneuvers that Robert and Julia could devise.

More sapphire bolts sprayed along the shields of the Aurora. "Shields are down to twenty-two percent," Jarod warned.

"Primary generators are holding for the moment. Switching to secondaries, tertiaries on standby," Mataran added.

"Shield effectiveness is creeping back up toward thirty…" Another hit. Jarod shook his head. "And we're right back to twenty-two."

On the screen Angel's bow guns tore into their attacker as soon as Locarno maneuvered their bow toward the enemy. The Aurora's own large pulse cannons thundered their sapphire fury into the shields of the Avenger. Solar torpedoes followed the bolts in, accompanied by the flashes of amber energy from the Aurora's phaser emplacements. Explosions flowered along the Avenger hull from these latter shots.

"They're losing starboard shield cohesion," Caterina said. "I think you hit a power conduit, I'm detecting power loss in parts of their primary hull."

The enemy's fury retorted. "Shields down to sixteen percent, damage on Decks 10, 12, and 14 through 20, multiple sections," Jarod said.

"We'll need to bring this fight to an end soon," Julia remarked. "Unless we get reinforcements."

Robert nodded in agreement. "So let's bring this to an end. Have Laurent's people break off for the moment and get distance."

"And give them a clear shot on the enemy's weakened side?", Julia inquired. She was smiling - it was the same tactic she was about to suggest.

"Exactly."

"Sending orders now."

"Maneuvering us into position," Locarno added.


Lucy got to Deck 35 and started running. She summoned all of her power to move as quickly as she could. Every part of her being knew she was almost out of time.


The secondary shuttle bay was quiet. Blood seeped from Hawk's wounded wrist as he generated nanite-forged blades for each hand. They formed with a sharp metallic sound not unlike that from Meridina's lakesh when she activated the memory metal blade.

"You can't win this," Meridina said calmly. "Please, no more violence."

"Sorry, but I'm not interested in living out the rest of my life in a cell," Hawk answered.

"I would rather not be forced to do this again…" She looked over at the wounded security personnel. "You are an interesting man. You have not permanently harmed or killed any of my subordinates in your escape. You lost valuable time stopping the bleeding in Ensign Truliri's shoulder. That seems incompatible with the viciousness I saw in your kills on the planet."

"Your people are decent beings. They don't deserve to die. It's that simple."

"But the house slave at Tara did?"

Hawk frowned. "She got in the way. It wasn't… I didn't…" He frowned. "You're delaying me."

"No. I simply wanted to understand you. It…"

He had no more time. Hawk charged at Meridina, blades up.

She didn't raise her lakesh. Instead Meridina put all of her will into a single mental act. SLEEP, her voice boomed in Hawk's head.

He fell over and collapsed.

Meridina reached into her robe and pulled out wrist cuffs. She approached Hawk's sleeping form in a series of quick steps.

As she got close to him, she felt apprehension and uncertainty. Fear. What was this from? Where could…

She turned to the entrance of the shuttle bay and saw Lucy enter. Lucy had her lakesh hilt in her hand. She stretched an arm out. "Meridina, watch out!"

Meridina felt the danger a second later.

A second too late.


Lucy screamed "Meridina!" as Hawk's nanite blade plunged into Meridina's chest.

The strength and sharpness of the blade, not to mention the enhanced strength of Hawk's arm, pushed the blade through even the swevyra'se body armor Meridina was wearing. It rended flesh and rib and erupted from the other side. Thick red blood poured from both ends.

Meridina looked in stunned silence at the blade connecting Hawk's right arm to her impaled torso.

"Bastard!" Lucy activated her lakesh and charged at them.

"Dammit, don't…!" Seeing Lucy was coming, Hawk had no choice. He pulled the blade out of Meridina and brought it up to parry Lucy's first swing. He had to twist to bring the other arm into position to parry the next blow. He stopped several more strikes in rapid succession and then had to pull back. The tip of Lucy's lakesh drew a red line across his neck just below the chin. Had he been just an inch or two closer, his throat would have been opened.

But as fast and powerful as Lucy was, she wasn't as good as Meridina yet. In her fear and anger she failed to sense the blow that came next. Hawk's foot snapped up and caught her in the belly. Lucy doubled over and fell to the floor of the shuttle bay.

"You don't have time!", Hawk shouted at her. "I didn't know her anatomy, dammit… I got her lung!" He pointed to where Meridina was laid out on the shuttle bay floor. A crimson pool was flowing to either side of her. Blood bubbled in her mouth. "You need to get her medical attention."

"So you can get away?!", Lucy shouted.

"What's more important to you, lady?" Hawk nodded his head at Meridina. "Her life, or capturing me?"

Lucy frowned at him. Because that question wasn't a question at all. And her answer was the obvious one.

Lucy put her lakesh away and went to Meridina's side. Her hand was already on her multidevice and activating the comm system. "Lucero to medbay, I've got a medical emergency in the secondary shuttle bay!"

It was Leo who answered, "What… Lucy? What's going…"

"Meridina's been stabbed through the lung! She needs immediate medical attention!"

"I've got a team on the way."

Lucy put her hand on Meridina's wound. Blood pushed through the gaps in her fingers. She could feel the lung filling with blood and worried that Leo's people wouldn't make it in time. She focused on the wound and the blood. Her power sensed it, settled on it, and she pulled. Blood flowed from the wound, staining Lucy's uniform and Meridina's robe as it spread across the deck.

She heard engines power up. She didn't bother to look up and see Hawk take off in a shuttle. However he broke through the security access… that was for another time. She had to concentrate. She had to keep Meridina's lung clear of blood without letting her bleed to death. She sensed the cut blood vessels in Meridina's torso and forced the blood to follow them only. The concentration this took was taxing, more than anything she'd tried before with her power. Desperation and will fueled her focus; she couldn't afford to relent or Meridina would drown in her own blood.

Come on, Leo… hurry up…


Jarod's board informed him the moment the shuttle Kane began to launch. "Unauthorized shuttle launch in the secondary bay," he told the others.

The news broke Robert's concentration for the moment. The tactical maneuver was almost complete. The fighters were readying to swing around and hit the other side of the Avenger from where they were firing. "What?"

"Shuttle is lifting off… now."

Julia frowned and hit a key. "Bridge to secondary shuttle bay, what's going on down there?"

"Meridina's hurt, I can't move or she could die!", Lucy shouted through the comm link. "He's getting away!"

Damn. "Change of plans!", Robert shouted. "Angel, target that shuttle! Julia, if you…"

"I'm re-directing the fighters," she said, already ahead of him.

"Slippery son of a bitch," Angel cursed, and for good reason. Their prisoner was a capable pilot, evading all of her shots for the moment. She needed one, just one…

The ship shook violently. "Shields down to six percent, cohesion loss imminent," Jarod said. "Mataran, the tertiary…"

"I've got them online, but they can't maintain cohesion against the hits we're taking from those pulse cannons," Mataran protested.

On the screen Robert watched the Avenger change orientation and accelerate. The other ship threw itself into the flight line of the stolen shuttle. "Angel, everything!"

Angel fired whatever she could. As fast as she could. Repeated amber bolts and beams moved across flickering blue shields as they tried to strike the shuttle. But the Avenger had already extended shields. The two ships had been so close that Hawk had been able to pull into the protective range of his ship before Angel could hit him.

Of course, that left the Avenger herself. If they could cripple her… "Focus on her drives," Robert ordered. "If we can disable their main power…."

"Gravitational spike," Caterina called out.

"Jump point forming," Jarod added.

A green jump point split open space ahead of the Avenger. The other ship accelerated at best speed into the maw of the tear in universes. Angel kept her fire up into the shields of the other ship, still trying to disable her.

But the Avenger's shields held. The torpedoes and pulse plasma fire were thwarted before they could damage her any further, or destabilize her escape.

The Avenger accelerated into the jump point and disappeared into it. The vortex closed behind them.

Robert growled in frustration. "Jarod, Cat, can you get their destination? Anything we can…"

"The jump point wasn't open long enough for me to get any chance of figuring out where it goes," Caterina answered. "I'm sorry."

Robert shook his head and smacked the arm of his chair. "Damn."

"Stand down from Code Red," Julia said. "I'm recalling our fighters."

"Send a message to Admiral Maran. Include all records of the battle." Robert leaned forward in his chair. A sick feeling came to him. He could feel Lucy's power clear across the ship, and Meridina…

"God, no," he murmured. "Meridina!" He jumped from his chair. Julia looked at him with confusion as he went toward the lift. "I'm going down to see what happened to Meridina," he declared. "You have the bridge, Commander."

"Yes, sir," Julia replied. She whispered her own silent hope and prayer that Meridina was okay. "Jarod," she began, "I'd like a damage report from all departments. Locarno, bring us back into Earth orbit, please. We still have some work ahead of us…"


Robert got to the medbay just ahead of the stretcher carrying Meridina. Dr. Vijay Dasgupta, from New Bengal in L2M1, was the surgeon that had been closest to the secondary shuttle bay, and he was accompanying her in with his medics. Leo was waiting. "Stab wound to torso area, it entered the inner section of her right lung," he informed Leo. "Lieutenant Lucero kept the blood from filling her lung. It collapsed on the way here."

"Alright. Let's get that fixed." Leo took control and pulled the stretcher toward the nearest medbay OR.

Lucy stepped in next. Her worry and concern could be sensed even without Robert's recent training. It was clear in her body language, as was exhaustion. "He ran her through," Lucy said. There was an evident anger in her voice. "He almost killed her… I had to let him go or she would have... !"

"You did the right thing," Robert assured her. He suspected others wouldn't agree. But losing Meridina was a price he was not willing to pay. Not for this.

Lucy nodded and stepped toward him… and he barely acted in time to catch her in his arms. "Woh. Lucy?"

"So tired… I had to concentrate to keep the blood out of her lung…" Lucy looked up at him with a weary expression. "Did we get him?"

He shook his head. "Sorry. He and his ship escaped into an interuniversal jump point."

Lucy grumbled under her breath.

"You should probably get some rest," he advised her.

"No. Have to wait to see how Meridina does…"

"I'll…" He almost finished that sentence before catching himself. He had other duties at the moment. Maran had to be informed about the other ship, the "Avenger". Robert chose instead to bring her to a seat. "Here. Let me know when she gets out of surgery?"

"O'course," she mumbled. It was clear that from her fatigue, Lucy was drifting off into sleep.

Robert made sure she wouldn't slip off the chair and left her to rest. As weary as he felt, other work had to be achieved before he could rest.


The Starship Avenger drifted quietly in the vastness of interstellar space. The wounds from her battle with the Aurora were still healing.

In her main shuttle bay, the stolen shuttle from the Aurora sat by itself. Hawk looked at it with an uncustomary quiet.

Behind him, Helen was standing with her arms crossed. She was a tall woman, with a muscled figure that, with her height, made Hawk think of an Amazon from lore. She had crossed her arm and was frowning faintly. "We should have sent a stronger message to them to butt out," Helen growled. "If we'd left their precious little ship in a few more pieces, they'd take the hint."

"It's not a big deal, Helen. It's a big Multiverse." Hawk smirked. "Besides, the goody-two-shoes and their kind could be useful to us. Eventually."

"Get anything juicy from their computers, lover?", Helen asked him.

Hawk smiled and brought up his personal display. Data in his systems appeared on a holo-screen above his right wrist. "How about a bunch of new universes for us to kick bad guy ass in?"

"Oooh. Sexy." Helen chuckled. "Although it's going to be hard to get around with this 'Alliance' getting in our way."

At that, Hawk let out a laugh. "Who says they're everywhere?"

"What I want to know is what technology they have." The new voice was coming from under the stolen shuttle. Janice, who moved out from under it, was on the pudgy side of a solid build and wearing a work suit that didn't hide the curves or pudginess in her figure. She had colored her long hair bright pink and purple, much to Hawk's bemusement, since it went with the light bronze complexion of her skin.

Blue and teal highlighted hair, brushed high, was the sign of her brother Kenneth. Ken had her height and build and complexion, although he had a bit of muscle on his arms compared to her. Ken was the engineer, Janice the technology wizard, and they were both unapologetic geeks of the highest order.

Sometimes Hawk was astounded that he'd ever gotten them, his cousins, involved. He'd never been the "geek" type.

"Their ship was crap compared to ours," Helen boasted. "We were kicking their asses."

"Not quite," Ken pointed out. "We have better firepower, sure, but did you see the starfighters they were using? We still haven't built something that nimble. And their shields are a lot more robust than ours."

"So let's hunt down one or two of their ships and get some samples of their shield tech," Janice proposed.

"Assuming Andy doesn't over-do it like he did that Earth…", Ken began. He stopped when he noticed Hawk's dirty look.

Helen snorted. "The people down there were all the backward superstitious type anyway. I say we make the Alliance think twice before…"

"We're not attacking the Alliance," Hawk declared.

"Oh?" Helen looked at him. "They didn't mind attacking you."

"They're goody-two-shoes. They're naive that way, but they're still good guys." Hawk frowned. "And that's our guiding rule. We don't kill good guys. Don't hurt 'em either, unless they make us. So we're not going out picking fights with the Alliance."

"They might not give us a choice," Helen pointed out. "Or are we going to wuss out over that too?"

Hawk turned and glared at her. "If they screw with us, we hit back. But I don't like killing people who don't have it coming to them. And these people are good ones. So we only defend ourselves and we hold back as much as plausibly can. Capische?"

"Yeah, fine." Helen rolled her eyes. "Just so long as you don't expect us to submit to them and their rules. I signed up to make scum pay, not to be an errand boy for rich jerks."

"Wouldn't that be 'errand girl'?", Janice pointed out. She turned away at the harsh glare that Helen shot her.

"Won't happen that way. Don't worry."

Helen nodded. "So, what do about Andy?"

"Can him," Hawk declared. He was frowning. "Again, first rule. No harming good guys. He blew up millions of people in his little temper tantrum."

"On a world like that, there are pretty damn few good guys," Helen insisted.

"Maybe, but there are some, and Andy blew them away too. I want that asshole as far from the tactical station as we can get him." Hawk started walking away. "I'm going to take a rest. When we get back, we need to start loading tactical education into the infusers. It should give us more of an edge if we ever run into the Aurora again."

"I was already going in for another infusion," Helen admitted.

"So was I," Janice added. "We need to know more about subspace to improve our…"

"Just make sure the tactical data is mixed in. We'll take turns as always. See you in the morning."

Hawk left them behind and headed to his quarters on deck 4. He peeled off his combat suit and threw it to the side. Another headache was coming in. So many headaches these days. They only seemed to relent when he was taking out scumbags.

He laid down on his bed and felt the pull of sleep. But he also thought of that woman. Meridina. She had shown no malice, no fear, not anything like he was used to when fighting.

And he thought of his blade in her chest, the blood pumping into her lungs, the stunned surprise on her face.

He hadn't intended to hit her in the lung. He'd never… she didn't deserve to die. He was certain of that. He was just trying to wound her enough to get away. She was too skilled for anything but the most unexpected attack to work. It was why he'd adjusted his nanites to artificially awaken him from any sleep state. Her attempt to compel him to sleep had only lasted a few seconds because of that. He'd wound her and then get away and…

You almost killed her. And she didn't need killing.

But the worst thing about it was… that sense of elation he had still felt. He'd bested this dangerous adversary and it made him feel strong, invincible. Even though he didn't want to hurt her, it felt good… Yeah, that's what happens. You mess with the bull, you get the damn horns.

I'm overthinking it. He turned over in his bed and tried to relax until he could go to sleep. The headache still stung behind his eyes. His mind began to wander.

I wonder how the goody two-shoes types are handling this…?