My most sincere apologies for the serious lapse in updates. Life has been hectic and crazy, but this summer I have a laptop so perhaps that will mitigate my writer's block. Anyway, enjoy the extra long chaper and please let me know what you think...as alway, reviews make my day.

Arwen

Connor had slid into a half-doze, leaning against Murphy on the couch, feeling the pulse of his wounds through his body. His sides still ached, and the skin at his throat was raw from the rope…a slight shudder ran through his body as he remembered the sound of slick Spanish on the cement, and the desperate darkness of the blindfold, straining to see with open eyes and failing…hearing Murphy's muffled grunts of pain and the slap of knuckles against flesh, and the powerless anger rushing through him, that he could do nothing about it. The smell of his own blood, and his brother's, metallic in the dank air. And the feel of the rope snaking about his neck, tightening slowly, Murphy's wordless shouts of anger and helplessness ringing in his ears.

Murphy brushed the hair from Connor's forehead tenderly, in a way that he'd never do when his brother was awake. He supposed it was easier to express love when a person was asleep and innocent, young-looking, with all lines of care smoothed from their face. Connor's forehead creased at some malignant dream. Then there was heavy footsteps, echoing through the house, and the door to Clare's bedroom slammed open. Connor jumped, muscles tensing abruptly, and then doubled over, hands going to his side.

"I told you what would happen if you made her cry," growled Christian, his eyes hard with a dangerous anger that Murphy recognized as similar to his own vengeful fury.

"Now listen—" he had time to say before the taller man grabbed his dark shirt, lifted him off the couch and punched him squarely in the jaw. Murphy grunted as Connor launched himself at Christian, landing a solid hook to his side before finding himself on the receiving end of a very vicious power hand to the stomach that sent lances of white-hot pain around his ribs. He gasped and went down, sliding off the couch onto the floor and just missing the sharp edges of the glossy coffee table.

"You bastards had no right," continued Christian, standing still momentarily as the twins struggled upright. Clare appeared in the doorway, with a scowl nearly as impressive as Christian's darkening her brow, and the brothers knew they would find no mercy in her this time. They glanced at each other and both went for Christian at once, Connor grimacing as his body protested again.

Christian took Murphy first, grasping his wrist and sending him careening off to the side with a deft lunge. Connor went for a chokehold, snugging his elbow beneath the other man's jaw. They were about the same height, but then Christian lowered his center of gravity, bending his legs and leaning forward, lifting Connor off the ground. Christian broke the chokehold by tucking his chin and pulling Connor's arm away from his neck.

Clare knew what Christian was going to do before he started the maneuver. It was the same move she would have chosen, and anger still warmed her stomach, but she saw how pale Connor had suddenly gone and a twinge of concern resonated in her chest. "Chris," she started warningly, but then Murphy slid in a cheap kidney punch and she knew it was a no-holds-barred brawl. With a snarl, Christian gathered himself, took hold of Connor's right arm, and then in one smooth terrifying movement he lunged forward, knees bent, torso parallel to the floor, and threw Connor over his shoulder, using his own body as leverage. By the grace of God, Connor, too, cleared all furniture obstacles before slamming into the floor on his back with a vibrating thud. His whole body went strangely still, and Clare rushed forward.

"Christian! Murphy!" The two men were still throwing punches, despite her stern commands. Without asking again, she waded between them, dodged a punch, and caught hold of Murphy's arm. His elbow bashed into her nose and she felt a warm rush of blood making its way down her nasal passages, but she ignored it and twisted Murphy's arm sharply. He dropped to his knees heavily, still struggling to reach Christian. "I'll dislocate your shoulder," she said sharply, putting a little more pressure on the tender ligaments of the rotator cuff. Murphy winced and she knew the pain had cut through the adrenaline. "Now," she said, directing her comments to both Christian and Murphy, "stop it." She knew it was no use chastising them—no matter how old or how mature, sometimes men just had to have conversations with their fists, and it seemed to work most of the time. She'd had enough experience to know that their anger was mostly spent, so she let go of Murphy and quickly made her way over to Connor, settling down on her knees beside him, swiping at her bloody nose with her sleeve.

"No," she said when Murphy took a step in her direction. "Both of you. Go put ice on your faces and I will tell you if I need anything." Her icy tone brooked no argument, although Murphy had to be guided by Christian to the kitchen—Clare couldn't tell if he couldn't see straight or if he was just trying to keep looking over his shoulder at Connor. She pressed her fingers against Connor's throat and found a strong pulse, and his breathing had a slight hitch but was deep and clear. Tapping lightly on his cheek, she attempted to rouse him. Smelling salts were a nasty way to be brought out of unconsciousness, and she preferred not to use them except when absolutely necessary. When he didn't respond, she rubbed two knuckles against his breastbone, stimulating the sensitive nerves. "Connor, can you hear me?"

That produced a thick groan in response. "What…th'hell…" His eyes opened, glassy and unfocused.

"You got on Christian's bad side," explained Clare perfunctorily. "You can't seem to keep out of trouble, though I suppose finding trouble is your line of work, you might say." He blinked hazily up at her, a thin ring of blue outlining his dilated pupils. "I'm getting tired of being a paramedic," Clare continued. She knew it was soothing to just hear another person's voice in the dazed state coming out of unconsciousness. He probably had a concussion as well, and that didn't help his mental clarity. "Just lie still." Of course he had no problem obeying that order.

Without giving the motion a second thought, she slipped her hands up his shirt, pulling up the fabric so she could better view his torso. To her chagrin, the laceration in his side was bleeding sluggishly, and he seemed to be in obvious discomfort over some new injury. "What is it with you and physical harm?"

He quirked half a smile in response, although she'd meant the question to be rhetorical. Still in that half-aware state between true consciousness and insensibility, he reached up and covered her hand with his as she probed his side. She paused. Heat raced up her arm at the touch of his skin….and then she gently pulled her hand away. "You do have a concussion," she murmured, holding his gaze for a moment meaningfully before examining one of the old bruises. He seemed to come to himself a little more, and she saw his fist clench on the carpet. "What hurts?"

Connor restrained himself from sighing. Stupid. "My shoulder," he replied hoarsely. "The right."

She nodded. "The one Christian threw you with." Her fingers traveled delicately across his collarbone. His gaze followed her touch intensely and she had to bite her tongue to keep from snapping at him. She didn't need this distraction, and not in the form of attraction to a known vigilante, a crazy-ass wanna-be superhero who, in two days, had managed to get into more scrapes than she had in the two years she'd been back. She poked at his shoulder, a little harder than necessary.

"Ow," he said, wincing and looking at her accusingly. She kept her face blank.

"It's not separated or dislocated," Clare pronounced. "Probably just a few torn muscles and stretched ligaments. You might have cracked a rib—there's some swelling on your side that wasn't there yesterday." She fished in the closest available drawer, which happened to be her knick-knack drawer, and found a penlight. "Open your eyes." Flashing the penlight beam across Connor's pupils, she was surprised to note that the dilation reaction wasn't too sluggish. She'd expected a pretty heavy duty concussion, what with the way he'd been disoriented. "You're fine." She stood up rather hastily.

"No sympathy?" he asked in a slurred brogue, blinking up at her. With a sigh, she extended a hand.

"Come on," she said. "Back to the spare bedroom."

He took her offered hand, careful to grasp it with his left hand so that she wouldn't pull on his sore shoulder. He'd rattled the galya, he could see it in her eyes…and in some small way it gave him satisfaction. He waited for her to offer assistance, because the room was still spinning and he was quite sure he'd fall on his ass if asked to walk by himself.

"Murphy," she called, "come drag your brother's ass to the spare bedroom."

Murphy emerged from the kitchen, ice-pack still in hand, with a handsome bruise on his jaw. "What's this now?" he asked. He prodded Connor playfully with his toe, and Connor responded with a tirade of menacing curses directed at his wayward brother. Clare rolled her eyes—as her mother had said, swearing was for those who didn't have a large enough vocabulary to express themselves otherwise. She made her way to the kitchen, colorful words echoing from the hallway as Connor told his brother what he thought of starting fights with bigger men when they were both already injured.

Christian looked up as she entered the kitchen. She ignored him, pulling the refrigerator door open and surveying its contents. Settling on a handful of grapes, she leaned against the counter and pinned him with her gaze. Her best friend managed to look both sheepish and self-satisfied at once. He shrugged. "You knew I was serious."

She didn't reply, popping another purple grape into her mouth and crunching down on it with relish.

"Look, Clare," Christian continued, dropping his voice an octave. "I don't like those two. I don't like the fact that they're putting you in danger, and they upset you." His gaze narrowed. "And don't think I didn't see one of them putting the moves on you in there."

"He was half-conscious," Clare muttered, but she knew he was right. Connor had been "putting the moves" on her…and the strange thing was, she hadn't really minded. Then she reprimanded herself strictly. No involvement. Not when they were so close to the life she had tried to leave behind—the key word in that phrase being tried. Once a Marine, always a Marine. The tough pride didn't fade away, nor did the memories…which was part of the problem, she supposed. She sighed. "Anyway," she continued, rubbing the back of her neck, "now that you've got your manly urges taken care of, we can discuss what we're going to do with these two."

Christian observed her from behind an ice pack. " First of all, my manly urges aren't nearly taken care of." He grinned, a little lopsidedly due to his fat lip. Then he sobered. "You know, Clare, you could just tell them to leave. They're putting us both in danger, if what Bear has told you is true."

"How did you know it was Bear?" Clare asked sharply.

Christian rolled his eyes at her. "What other information specialist lives in Boston, close enough that you can get there on an hour and a half run?"

"I hate it when you do that," she muttered in response.

"Oh, the powers of a perceptive mind and deductive reasoning," drawled Christian.

Clare smiled a little. "So you think I should just toss them out onto the street?"

Christian put down the ice pack. "Yes."

She sighed and chewed a grape contemplatively, hesitating before she spoke. "When I went for a run today…when I was coming back, someone jumped me." She shook her head and held a hand up as Christian started forward. "He didn't hurt me, not really, just got a leg up on me and rattled my cage a bit." Her green eyes hardened at the memory. "He seemed to know who I was, and that I had something to do with those two. From what Bear told me, I assume that it's the gang that roughed them up yesterday."

Christian listened silently until she was finished. "If they know who you are, they know where you live," he said tensely.

"That's what I was about to tell you before you had to go and tell them your opinions with your fists," she shot back. He conceded her point with a nod.

"So you know what we have to do," he said.

"If we can, Chris," she replied, already moving toward the dining room. "But I don't know if we're in too deep to get out." She stopped at a locked armoire, fingers immediately going to the gleaming steel lock, and after a moment of twisting dials and a deft twist, the lock popped open and she put it to one side, opening the armoire doors. "Go get them," she said to Christian, who nodded and silently padded toward the spare bedroom. As she stood in front of the armoire, she realized she was still soaked from her run, shirt clinging to her skin with damp. In close-quarter situations where lives hung in the balance, personal comfort was superfluous. She'd learned that long ago and it was instinct now. But mixing guns and water was never a good idea. She went into the kitchen, grabbed a t-shirt from the clean laundry sitting in the basket and stripped off her wet shirt, unconcernedly walking back toward the dining room, clad in just her sports-bra.

"What the fuck?" she heard from the spare bedroom, and then the sounds of three people making their way toward her, two with very obviously unhappy steps. The twins came into view, escorted by Christian.

Connor couldn't help his eyes widening when he saw that Clare had voluntarily stripped down to her underwear—at least up top—and was absentmindedly considering the contents of the armoire, dry shirt in hand. Her skin was very pale, that inevitable end-of-the-winter-in-Boston color, and for some reason he was vaguely relieved that she didn't stave the wintry color off with a tanning-bed. She was slim, but not thin, with a bit of hip that suggested she allowed herself to indulge occasionally. Murphy reached over and tapped his twin's mouth shut as Connor's eyes roved over the muscular lines of Clare's stomach.

"You'd better keep your eyes in your head," Murphy murmured in Connor's ear with a warning pinch. Connor blinked and then rolled his eyes at Murphy, a little sheepishly.

"You'd better not be discussing what I think you're discussing," said Christian warningly, tightening his grip on their shoulders.

"Calm down and shut up," Clare said absently, eyes running over the contents of the armoire. She knew her voice had gone cold and battle-smooth, icy enough to stop a suspect in their tracks. After a moment she pulled her shirt on, over her head in one smooth movement. Her mind was somewhere else…in that calm place where nothing else mattered…she didn't feel Connor's eyes on her, or color at the suggestion contained within them. She had more important things on her mind.

Connor and Murphy came up behind Clare and both simultaneously let out wordless exclamations of disbelief and appreciation: she stood in front of an armoire of firearms, from military-grade M16s to M9 Berettas to Smith and Wessons to Brownings, all gleaming and oiled and beautiful.

"Take your pick," she said, breaking the silence and picking up a belt with twin holsters from a peg on the back of the armoire. She tightened it around her waist, over her running shorts, and picked out a slim pistol along with a heavier Beretta, sliding them into the holsters with a practiced hand.

"Mother of God," Connor murmured. Murphy stepped forward and picked his guns, looking through the scope of a sniper's rifle appreciatively.

"Quickly," Clare urged with a look at Christian. He stepped forward and chose his weapons, leaning toward the heavier ones.

"I got jumped on the way back here," she said to the room in general as the twins began inspecting different guns. Connor paused in his examination of a sniper scope. Murphy glanced her way and then continued choosing his weapons with a business-like air. She could tell he was still listening.

"So…what happened?" Connor said tensely.

"Let's just say you're lucky I understand Spanish," she replied. "This guy…he knew who I was, and that, somehow, I was involved with you two." She pressed her mouth together. "He knew I was a Marine."

"Fuck," muttered Connor.

"So," she continued over him, "I figured it was time to break out the guns." With a sweet smile she picked up a clip of ammunition and slammed it into her Beretta after a cursory glance at the safety. "Come on. To the basement."

"Are we having a sleepover?" quipped Christian devilishly as he selected a high-powered rifle.

Connor wished he could still make jokes, but his insides were twisted tighter than a hangman's knot. Honestly, it was nerve-wracking when it was just Murph he had to worry about…but now there was Clare, and Christian as well. Two innocent people dragged into their web of revenge and retribution. "Look," he said softly, "just let us go."

Clare looked at him and smiled tightly, her green eyes containing an emotion he couldn't quite pinpoint. "With the tendency you have for getting into trouble, I wouldn't take your chances out on the street."

"You're taking your chances with us all right," cautioned Connor. "This isn't a fuckin war zone, Clare. People will notice. The cops will come."

She stiffened. "Oh. Is that what you're worried about?" Her eyes turned cold as she regarded him for a breath of silence. Then she turned away, picking up a box of ammunition and hefting it under her arm as she headed toward a grey-painted door.

Murphy elbowed Connor, giving him a look that plainly said, Well, now you've done it.

Connor blinked and frowned. I don't know what I fuckin' said to make her angry but I sure as hell want to take it back, he thought at Murphy, who seemed to understand, giving him a sympathetic eyebrow quirk. Christian ushered them after her, through the grey door and down the stairs.

"Why are we headin into the fuckin basement?" asked Murphy loudly, his voice echoing.

"Because she says so," said Christian.

"No." Murphy stopped and Connor bumped into him a little, his balance still shaky. "We need the whole fuckin' story. About why you know kung fu or whatever the hell that is, and why you have fuckin guns in your dinin' room, and why we should trust you."

There was a moment of dead silence. The dank basement air wafted around them, stirred only by their breath. Clare half-turned and looked up at Murphy. "Fine. But you have to come down into the basement first. And then I get to hear yours."

Murphy spat on the hand that wasn't gripping his rifle. Christian winced as he held it out to Clare, who spat on her own hand and shook Murphy's without so much as a blink. Connor smiled a little—any galya who spit-shook without flinching was admirable in his books.

Clare restrained herself from wiping her hand on her shorts as she continued down the stairs. She would never figure out men's fascination with bodily functions, and figuring out ways to bring them into the simplest of things, like a handshake. Honestly. A tickle of foreboding and a thread of adrenaline worked its way down her spine…she wasn't too happy with the ultimatum, but if that was what it took to get the four of them out of the line of fire, then that was what it took. She could handle it. Reaching the bottom of the stairs, she went immediately to check the grated window of the basement, set high up in the cinderblock walls. There was a rattling at the top of the stairs and she knew it was Christian throwing the bolts on the door. The only other exit was the storm-doors on the other side of the basement, and those were always padlocked shut.

Murphy inspected the basement, pacing with careful slow steps, his gun pointed to the ground. Cinderblock walls, unfinished, unpainted. Then he turned the corner and there was a rug, and some old dilapidated chairs with the stuffing falling out the seams, and an old Magnivox television on an aluminum card-table. There was even a hip-high fridge, whirring in an old, tired way, and a crate of bottled water sitting in one corner, along with some canned soups. A few slightly bedraggled blankets were thrown across the backs of the chairs. "Well, you have a nice little den down here."

Clare shrugged with one shoulder. "In case of a blizzard," she said absently.

"Bullshit," said Murphy in response. She looked at him sharply and he grinned, and she slowly smiled, shaking her head.

"All right," she said. "You caught me. I couldn't really help myself, after…"

"After?" prompted Murphy. When she hesitated, he said, "You promised, remember."

Clare's jaw hardened as she clenched her teeth. "After Iraq, all right?"

"Do you want to sit down?" Connor asked. "Figure they haven't started shooting yet, might as well be comfortable."

Clare and Christian took one of the oversized chairs, Christian perched on the wide armrest. Connor and Murphy took the other two chairs.

"Four years ago I was a Marine," Clare started abruptly. "It doesn't really matter what happened before that."

"Naval Academy," supplied Murphy. "The diploma is in your spare bedroom."

Clare silenced him with a frosty look. "As I was saying, it doesn't really matter what happened before that. I graduated from The Basic School in Quantico, got assigned to a unit. Since I wasn't infantry I volunteered to be trained as an emergency medic. Normally it's only enlisted, but I was a pretty vocal 2nd Lieutenant when it came to being able to take care of my people. I was in charge of a platoon. We worked in supplies, and after the grunts took Fallujah we took turns at roadside checkpoints like everyone else. They trained us up as security, and taught us how to spot IEDs on the road when we were driving in convoys." Her eyes were faraway, distant. "The closest call was when a Humvee four vehicles in front of us got hit by a suicide attack. Killed three men." She blinked, her fingers stroking the metal of her gun. Christian watched her intensely as she continued. She looked straight at the twins and swallowed hard. "I was engaged to a captain," she said roughly. "He worked in data, with the computers. Sometimes they would come out in the convoys to set up antennas for their receivers." Pause. Collect yourself. Control it, she thought. "One day we were rolling down a road in the goddamn desert on the fringe of Fallujah and this—guy—he starts running toward us, and we almost shot him but then we didn't because he didn't have a weapon and the media would crucify us—" the words tumbled out—"and that was right after that sergeant shot that woman with the white flag, that one, and that motherfucker ran right up to the convoy and threw himself in front of Dominic's Humvee and detonated his vest."

Christian looked stonily at the two brothers. Murphy raked his fingers through his hair and rubbed the back of his neck; Connor gazed at Clare with an empathetic twist in his eyes. One of his hands half-lifted, as if he wanted to touch her and offer comfort; but he tucked his arms across his chest.

"So," Clare continued, a biting tone to her voice now, "I'm the nearest one with any medical knowledge. Of the five guys in the Humvee, two are straight-up KIAs. One lost his leg and was bleeding out. He died. The driver had a sucking chest wound but we managed to seal that up with the field kit and Medevac him."

"Clare, you don't have to go on," Christian said. "You don't owe them anymore."

Clare shook her head, lips pressed tightly together. "They asked. I'm going to tell." With a deep breath she pressed on. "There were six vehicles in the convoy. The one was destroyed and then the one in front of it disabled from the blast. The one in back had its windshield blown out and two of the guys had some pretty severe facial lacerations. I think one lost an eye. Maybe an ear. I don't remember." Murphy looked a little sick. He wiped his face with one hand. "There were four of us trying to get the wounded together, and we radioed out for a helo. All in all we had eight injured. And then…there must have been a secondary timer on that goddamn vest—we didn't check the bastard, we just let him burn on the hood of that Humvee. In any case, we were all exposed when it went off. I was working on Dominic when it happened and he pulled me down. He saved my life." She could feel the wetness in her eyes but she was beyond it. "And then I was one of the wounded and I couldn't do anything else. Two others died while we waited. It was only about ten minutes until the helo arrived but…they died." She raised her chin and pulled up the sleeve of her shirt, stripping off the elastic of her fluorescent ID-card holder. Christian closed his eyes.

Clare held up her arm almost defiantly for the twins' inspection. A braided, raised rope of scar tissue ran around her bicep, striating her skin with red and white. Smaller scars snaked off around her elbow. Connor cursed himself for not noticing it before—but she'd strategically placed the ID holder, and the smaller scars weren't that apparent, not unless you knew what they were and how they had gotten there.

"Well, fuck me," said Murphy softly. Connor opened his mouth to say something and then closed it.

"I almost lost my arm," she said with a lopsided, wry sort of grin, her eyes sparkling with cutting, bitter sarcasm.

"You move it fine," pointed out Murphy.

"That's what fourteen months of physical therapy will do for you," she replied, as if she were merely remarking upon the weather. She pulled down her sleeve and picked up her gun again. Telling the story had been much easier than she'd expected. She shrugged. "Anyway. That's it."

Connor wanted badly to ask a question. His tongue itched to form the words, and he knew it was insensitive and callous. So he suppressed it. But in his mind he was agonizing over the fact that Clare had not said Dominic died. You're a fucking bastard for wanting to know, the chivalrous part of him snapped at the rest. So he kept his mouth shut. Murphy could tell he wanted to say something, but let it slide with a look that plainly said they would discuss it later, in private, if there was such a thing as privacy in the close quarters of the basement.

"Satisfied?" growled Christian dangerously.

"Yes," said Connor sensibly.

"I like you better when you act gay," said Murphy at the same time. That coaxed a smile out of Clare, at least.

"So," she said. "Your turn. Tell me, why is it we're hiding from a gang in my basement?"

"First of all," replied Murphy, "it's your own fault. If you weren't so damn honorable and merciful and virtuous you would have left us in that fuckin alley and been about your day, no harm done."

"I'll take that as a compliment," Clare interjected wryly.

"Second of all, let us get our facts straight." He turned to Connor, eyebrows raised. "Where do we start?"

Connor shrugged. "From the beginning."