Hearts and Souls
Chapter 10: Baby, What a Big Surprise
For a legal disclaimer, see the beginning of chapter 1; for a technical disclaimer, see the beginning of chapter 4.
A few quick notes on this chapter: The name "Sally Gowin" is based on Sally Wingo, the character Blythe Danner (Gwyneth Paltrow's mom) played in the movie The Prince of Tides. Pepper's reaction to Darvocet is based on my own experience with the same medication after some outpatient surgery a few years ago. And all the organizations Natalie mentions that track religious persecution are real and worth checking out. Not every country practices the freedoms of belief that those of us in the "West" enjoy, and there are many thousands of people being persecuted or in jail right now for doing nothing more threatening than following their own conscience.
Okay, off my soapbox and back to the story …
Within 24 hours, the doctors ran into a snag in Adele Carey's recovery from foot-replacement surgery. It was going far faster than they were prepared for.
Sure enough, by Wednesday morning the swelling had gone down, and Adele could not only stand on her new appendage comfortably, but had achieved full range of motion and as complete a sense of touch through it as she was likely to get. (Tony had done his best, but he still couldn't match evolution for packing the most sensory inputs into the smallest possible area.) And on Thursday, Tony showed up at Pegasus Project HQ only to be greeted by a grinning Adele on crutches – holding the left one tightly to her side with her elbow to compensate for her missing hand. "I'm impressed – they've got you up and about now?"
"No, 'they' don't," Adele replied archly. "'They' put the crutches in my sickroom, thinking I'd wait for 'them' before putting them to use. I didn't want to wait, so …"
"Adele!" It was Lieutenant Susan Forster, who was coming down the hall at full stomp. "Where the heck have you been? We've been looking all over for you!"
Adele's face was a parody of a sulking child's. "Sor-ry, Mum …" she drawled.
Tony ran a hand down his face in an attempt to wipe the smile off it. "Adele, you need to work with the medical staff. They're just trying to take care of you, keep you safe …"
Now Adele frowned for real. "I don't need anyone to keep me sa-a-a-a- …" She'd instinctively gestured with her left arm, in the process losing her grip on that crutch. As it clattered to the floor, she stumbled to compensate and smacked soundly into the hallway wall, back first, where thankfully she was able to catch her balance. "Uhhf. Well … perhaps on second thought …"
By now, Susan had caught up, with Dr. Mahmoud, one of Dr. Kaur's assistants, right behind. "Adele, why didn't you just tell us you wanted to take a walk?"
"Because I wanted to take it alone. I don't like being coddled."
Susan, Tony could tell, was fighting not to roll her eyes or yell. "So how did that work out for you?"
Adele's face was neutral. "Fine, until I got distracted." The she let her shoulders relax. "Oh, bum. I know, I was unsafe at any speed. Not sure what got into me."
"Post-surgical euphoria. It's normal. Tell you what – let's see if I can strap the left crutch to your arm and you can take another run at it. With company." Susan tapped herself in the chest with her thumb.
"All right," an abashed Adele replied after a moment's hesitation.
"Mind if I come with?" Tony asked, out of courtesy rather than necessity.
"Sure," both women replied, as Susan got herself situated under Adele's left arm.
As they walked back to Adele's room, Dr. Mahmoud said, "your timing was perfect, Mr. Stark – Dr. Kaur wanted to speak with you and Dr. Goldman about the schedule for the next surgery ..."
"I'm free this afternoon!" Adele called over her shoulder, leaving Dr. Mahmoud flustered.
Post-surgical euphoria, indeed, Tony thought. Or just massive cockiness. Probably both. "Well, her recovery from the first surgery seems to be going well," he said with a smile.
"Perfectly," replied Dr. Kaur, who was standing with Dr. Goldman by the entrance to Adele's room as they went in. "And thank you for helping return our runaway."
"That was uncalled for!" Adele squeaked, then stopped. "Ah, I guess it isn't. Oh well, nothing for it." She hoisted herself up onto her bed with her right hand and left stump, extended her right leg and looked critically at her new foot, wiggling the toes. "I really should pop down to the chemist's and get some nail polish. Think pink would do?"
Dr. Kaur sat and pretended to give it some thought. "Well, how about we hold off until you can do both feet at once?" She turned to Tony and Dr. Goldman. "As the chief neurosurgeon on this project, I don't see any reason why we couldn't implant the new leg as soon as Saturday."
Tony's eyes widened. "That soon?"
"Aside from this morning's little jaunt, there haven't been any complications," Dr. Goldman remarked. "Both the replacement foot and the stump are holding up ideally. Were this the only surgery, we'd probably be starting to taper the anti-rejection drugs. And besides, the leg will be a less complex procedure – we're mostly working with the large nerve trunks rather than the smaller ones around the ankle."
"And now, we've had some practice," Dr. Kaur concluded. "We're looking at a six-, maybe seven-hour procedure."
"Oh, but Saturday? I was so hoping for a beach day," Adele mock-whined.
"I don't know about the beach," Tony mused. "These things are waterproof, I made sure of that – but sand abrading the veneer could be a real problem."
Dr. Kaur shrugged and smiled. "Oh, then we'll just get one of those little polishers one uses for model trains. She'll be right as rain." And they all shared a laugh.
It was a laugh Tony needed, as it turned out. Things at home were dead serious.
With her own surgery approaching, Pepper was decidedly subdued. It didn't help that she spent much of the day Friday at Cedars-Sinai undergoing a final series of tests, including more than the usual amount of blood samples. "Dr. Faisal just said she wanted the lab to check a couple of things," Pepper explained. "I'm not worried."
Tony had doubts about the last part, but kept them to himself.
Meanwhile, Natalie had been doing some research of her own, seeing if they could try to predict Prometheus' next target. She had gone through the lists of escapees from the three prison breaks and found that almost all of them had been jailed on religious charges – "organizing an illegal religious meeting" or "insulting the prophet Mohammed" or the like. That led to checking the latest news releases from Christian groups that specialized in calling attention to religious persecution. As it turned out, there were more organizations – and more persecution – than they had ever imagined.
So on Saturday, while Pepper rested up and Adele went under the knife again, Tony and Natalie sat in the basement and went through all the material she'd found, hoping for a clue. "Okay, I'm loading everything into JARVIS that I could find from the last four or five months – Open Doors, Forum 18, ASSIST News Service, Voice of the Martyrs, you name it. Even checked Amnesty International. We'll be able to sort by location, event, criminal charge, date and reporting organization." Natalie popped one CD-ROM out of a drive and dropped in another, then shook her head. "I work in the Department of Homeland Security. I've been in 33 countries. I read everything on foreign affairs I can get my hands on. And I didn't know about one-tenth of this stuff!"
"It does seem to be an underreported story," he said drily.
"Unbelievable," she said, shaking her head. "Makes me thankful to live in a country where you can believe – or not believe – whatever you want, without having to worry about the thought police busting down your door."
"Y'know, I think this is the first time I've ever heard you talk politics."
"Possibly." The computer beeped and Natalie swapped CD-ROMs again. "Okay. last one. But seriously, we do take that freedom for granted. There are still a lot of places in the 10/40 window where that's not the case. It's not just Iran and the more obvious rogue states – it's darn near all of …"
"Hold up a second. Ten-forty-what?"
"Oh, yeah. The '10/40 window' is a term used by Christian missions organizations to describe the least evangelized part of the world – basically the Eastern Hemisphere from 10 degrees to 40 degrees North, thus the name. Almost all the Muslim countries are in there, along with India, China and most of what we call the Far East. There are a few in that area – like Italy, Spain, South Korea – where there's already a strong Christian presence, but they're the exceptions." Natalie stopped and chuckled for a moment. "I've been spending so much of the last week looking through evangelical materials, I'm starting to pick up the lingo."
"You're not going to show up one day with big hair and heavy makeup, are you?" Tony said with a smirk.
"Not funny, sir." Beep. Natalie pulled out the CD-ROM. "Besides, I don't think that's a Christian thing so much as a nouveau-riche white trash thing. You see it a lot around Washington, and it crosses religious boundaries. Anyway, that was the last disk. JARVIS, you getting all of that sorted?"
"Five seconds," the computer responded.
"He's good," Tony remarked. "Okay, let's start with something simple. Give me a map of every incident we just put in. No, wait –we'd probably end up with a world map, wouldn't we?"
"Indeed, sir," JARVIS replied.
"Then let's narrow it down to the areas Prometheus has already struck. We figure his range is limited anyway. East-west, go from Iran to … uh, Bangladesh. North as far as … help me out, Natalie, I don't know my 'Stans very well …"
"Let's just include them all. North up to Kazakhstan – please, Tony, no Borat jokes – and south to Sri Lanka."
Tony looked at Natalie sidelong. "You caught me just in time."
She smiled slyly. "Had a hunch."
A map popped up on the largest monitor – actually a 76" plasma screen. The entire region was festooned with yellow stars, except in some of the places where there was almost no population.
Tony made a face. "That didn't narrow it down much."
Natalie nodded sadly. "I told you, there's a lot of bad stuff going on in that part of the world …"
"So you did. All right … JARVIS, keep the map up, but clear the decorations." The map went from mostly yellow to green-and-brown in an instant. "Now, put up yellow stars only for actual cases of imprisonment, orange stars for attacks or attempted attacks on churches …"
"… And blue stars for Prometheus' actions," Natalie finished.
JARVIS did as ordered. There were still an awful lot of stars. "How many is that, JARVIS?" Tony asked.
"Ninety-four, sir. Though six of them are, of course, duplicates – areas in the reports that later received visits from Prometheus."
"Eighty-eight cases of imprisonment for religious reasons, or attacks on churches. Since June 1 of this year." Natalie looked ill.
"Four months and spare change," Tony muttered. "That's horrible. Prometheus could basically take his pick. Makes you wonder why he's not doing even more …"
"I was wondering that myself. Did you notice how most of the events take place on Saturday, local time?"
"Yeah, come to think of it …" Tony snapped his fingers. "He's doing this on his day off. Works Monday to Friday, probably in a pew Sunday morning …"
"Is it a clue?"
"Damned if I know. But if my hypothesis is right, it would explain why he's not hitting the other eighty-some spots – he doesn't have the free time. And he's just become a lot easier to track." He looked at the map again. "I've got an idea. JARVIS, take down all but the blue stars." The yellow and orange ones vanished. "Okay … now give me a list of major cities within 1000 miles of every one of those sites."
"No cities qualify," JARVIS reported.
"Okay, make it 1200 miles."
"No cities qualify."
"Damn. 1400."
"Two cities qualify: Karachi, Pakistan and Mumbai, India."
Tony and Natalie sat in silence for several seconds. Finally Natalie spoke. "He's a Brit or something similar – Australian, maybe? He's working Fridays. And on Sundays he's in church. If all that's true …"
"… then it isn't likely to be Karachi," Tony finished for her. "We've got a day of the week. We've got a location."
"Possible day and location," Natalie hastened to add.
"Over the years, Natalie, I've learned to trust my gut. This is definitely the right track. JARVIS … put up all the reports of imprisonment since September 1." Thirteen yellow stars came up on the map. "Now a circle, centered on Mumbai, radius 1400 miles. And take down all the stars outside the circle." A red circle popped onto the screen, and four of the yellow stars winked out.
"Nine likely targets," Natalie said.
Tony was about to agree when his PDA went off. He looked at the caller ID. Nick Fury. Oh, he was taking this call ... "Good timing, Nick," he answered.
"Oh, really. So you don't mind me spoiling your weekend all of a sudden?"
"If you're calling and saying Prometheus struck again, you won't be spoiling it, you'll be improving it."
Several seconds of static, and then: "Tony, you just keep getting weirder. Yeah, Prometheus did his damnedest today to piss me off, not to mention an entire Pakistani army battalion in Bannu – Pashtun country, up near the Afghan border. Kept them from going into a Catholic church where they claimed some al-Qaeda operatives might be taking refuge."
Tony wrinkled his nose. "Um … help me out here, Nick. What are the odds that a couple of fire-breathing sons of bin Laden would choose to hide in a Christian church?" The look on Natalie's face seemed to say, zero or lower.
"Look, Tony, we both know it's bullshit. The Pakistani army treats beating on the Pashtuns like it's a spectator sport. The point is, the breathing down my neck just got that much hotter. If you've got answers, I need them, and I need them now!"
"Well, I've at least got more clues." He related what he and Natalie had been doing, and had divined in the last few minutes. Then he stopped and looked at the monitor again. "JARVIS, put a blue star on Bannu, Pakistan." Sure enough, it was comfortable within the red circle – and not too far from two of the others, the sites of the aid workers rescue and the Pakistan prison break.
"So what do you think we should do next?" Nick inquired.
Tony wondered if he was getting The Look on his face again. "Nick, I want to go over there."
"What?"
"Nick, the next Saturday I can, I want to be in the suit and over Mumbai. I can find this guy, see what his deal is …"
"Tony, if you think you're going to railroad me into sending you and your damn suit out to the front lines on S.H.I.E.L.D. business, if you think I'm prepared to have you as anything more than a consultant right now, you've got another think coming."
"Not S.H.I.E.L.D., Nick. Me. This person's a renegade; he's not likely to trust anyone from any government. But me? I'm known for being a loose cannon, and I've got a recognizable face – he might be more willing to talk to me. Besides, at this point I'd be happy to do it on my own dime; I want to get to the bottom of this." If only to get you off my back, he didn't add.
Another pause on the line. "You that sure?"
"Yes, I am." He looked at Natalie, who nodded judiciously. "Natalie thinks it could work. And this one's on me – you don't even have to budget for it. I can fly out on a Thursday night, be in Dubai Friday, and be patrolling over Mumbai by Friday evening if necessary."
"Are we talking this coming week?"
Tony almost said yes, then caught himself – not with Pepper's surgery on Monday. And who knows where Pegasus Project would be seven days from now. He sighed. "Probably not this week." And he explained why.
"Okay, one last question. If I say no, no, hell no, not ever, you'll likely do it anyway, won't you?"
He couldn't help but smile. "Yeah, I suspect I will."
"You're gonna give me an ulcer someday, Tony."
"I thought you didn't get ulcers, you were just a carrier. Ow," he added as Nick slammed down what must have been a fairly heavy phone receiver. Then he recapped the gist of the conversation for Natalie, adding, "I think that was as close to permission as I'm likely to get."
"I think you're right," she said, her expression neutral. "You really think you can catch Prometheus?"
"Don't know about catching him. But I think I can talk to him. Who knows, maybe he really is doing God's work." Tony stretched and stood. "Stranger things have happened, right?"
But for now, and for most of Sunday as well, the only thing happening for Tony was a whole lot of waiting.
After a quick Sunday morning check-in at LAAFB (where Adele's recovery from surgery #2 was proceeding as rapidly as it had for surgery #1), he turned things over to Rhodey for the rest of the day so he could spend the time with Pepper. They watched football on television, had a quiet lunch and played a game of Scrabble – in which Pepper, as was customary, cleaned Tony's clock.
It was only late that afternoon, as Tony was driving Pepper to Cedars-Sinai to check in for her operation, that either of them became very verbal. "It's been a lovely day," she said, looking out the window at the descending sun.
"It has," he replied, taking his hand off the steering wheel to hold her hand.
"You still worried about this?"
Tony shrugged. "A little." Pause. "If it were happening to anyone else, I probably wouldn't be. But …"
The silence stretched for a while before Pepper spoke. "I love you too, Tony."
Tony smiled and blushed. "I wish I could just be sanguine about this – no pun intended. But I can't. I … I don't have any brothers or sisters, my parents are long gone. Obie … became what he became, and he's gone too. You and Rhodey and Happy are all the family I have, really. And when family hurts …"
Pepper nodded. "I know what you mean. For pretty much the same reasons."
A thought occurred to Tony. "Dr. Faisal mentioned that your, um, your condition was probably from one of your birth parents. I remember you were researching them …"
"I never told you?" After he shook his head, she continued. "Well, there isn't much to tell. My mother's name was Sally Gowin, and she was a sixteen-year-old drug addict. No one knew who my father was. Including Sally."
"Sheesh-oh-beesh."
"Quite. Thankfully, she had enough sense to know she had no business raising a child, so she planned all along to give me up for adoption – and stayed clean long enough to have me. Right after I was born, Orville and Annette Potts adopted me … and Sally went right back to what she'd been doing." She sighed before going on. "About a year later, her body was found in a drainage ditch outside Oxnard. Overdose."
Tony shook his head. "Oh, Pep …," he said sympathetically.
"And when I tracked down her parents, they'd both died a couple of years before. The only living relative I could find was a second cousin in Idaho – who wasn't the least interested in making acquaintances. That was that. I'm just glad Mom and Dad were there for me – and got married when they were too old to have kids of their own. So it's okay." She paused and looked pointedly at Tony. "And it's going to be okay. Quit the worrying."
"You mean, like you quit worrying every time I put on the suit?" he said with a smirk.
"Not fair," she replied, and they both laughed.
All too soon, they were at the hospital entrance. "You know, if you want, I'll stay with you until …"
"Tony, I'll feel a lot better know that you're keeping busy, getting Adele back on her – new – feet, coming up with more ideas for Stark Industries … and staying out of the doctors' hair." She delivered the last part with a smile. "I promise I'll call you as soon as the anesthetic wears off, okay?"
"Okay." He hugged her tight, breathing in the scent of her shampoo. He hoped it wasn't for the last time. "I … I love you too, Virginia."
Pepper didn't say a word, but when she pulled back, the tears in her eyes were worth a thousand. "I'm going to be fine. We'll talk tomorrow." She gave his hand one last squeeze, got out of the car, grabbed her overnight bag and walked into the hospital.
And Tony, after gulping down a couple of deep breaths, drove home again to do some more waiting.
Pepper was right – keeping busy was just the tonic he needed to hold his fears at bay. Though he never stopped thinking about her for more than three minutes or so, at least he wasn't going crazy …
And there was plenty to occupy him, starting with the first real technical problem of the entire Pegasus Project – which mercifully was discovered just before Tony left home for LAAFB. "The thumb is just not working correctly," Zeke Atchison, the Stark Industries engineer whom Tony has seconded to the project, told him over the phone. "It thinks it's a fifth finger." That meant almost two hours rewriting the software for Adele's soon-to-be-new hand, transmitting it, testing it, re-testing and re-transmitting until the thumb started acting properly opposable.
Then Charles Elachi from JPL called (again, just as Tony was heading for the door) and wanted to talk about the potential of a Stark-produced VTOL vehicle for NASA. They spent about twenty minutes on that subject, then another twenty shooting the bull on everything from the scuttlebutt among NASA execs to the McCourt divorce case and how it might affect the Dodgers' chances the following year. (Always important to keep potential customers happy, he reminded himself as the conversation stretched on.)
After that, Tony told JARVIS to forward all calls to the house to his cell phone, and dashed out the door before someone else could electronically waylay him. No one did, which meant the drive from Malibu to LAAFB was accomplished in relative peace.
Which ended as soon as he got in the door of Pegasus headquarters. "What took you so long today?" Rhodey asked before he'd taken three steps.
"In my country, Platypus, it's customary to start with 'good morning.' What's the latest crisis?"
"No crises, Tone – just worrying about you. Babysitter's prerogative. Any word on Pepper?"
"Not yet. I'm promised a call as soon as she's able. But take my mind off that – what's gone on in my absence?"
"Well, Bragg's weekly report went to the Pentagon without incident. Zeke said he was having some problems with the thumb …"
"He called me. I think we got it straightened out, but I'll double-check with him and the docs."
"Okay. And speaking of the docs, they want to shoot for Wednesday on the hand implant –"
"Wow. They're in a rush …"
"– contingent on your approval, and provided the hand is working properly. And Adele's recovery is going great; the physical therapist took her outside for a little workout."
"Then I should probably go there first. Point the way."
Los Angeles Air Force Base didn't have a lot of open space – its function was largely administrative – but there was a small parade ground, just a square of asphalt. With Rhodey following him, Tony went out the door to the parade ground …
… just in time to have something about the size of his head whiz past him and carom off the side of the building. "What the … ?"
"Sorry!" someone called from his left. He caught his breath and turned to find Adele jogging up. She was wearing a Wolverhampton jersey and shorts, her new leg and feet, and a look of acute embarrassment. "Aim was a bit off. Working on it, though …"
"Yeah. See that you do. Damn." He heard Rhodey behind him swallow a laugh. "So I guess the new leg is working about as well as the old one?"
"Oh no," Adele replied with a grin. "Better."
Tony raised an eyebrow. "Really!"
"Oh yes! In school I always had to play right side of the pitch, I was so extremely right-footed. I couldn't get a decent shot off with my left before – just couldn't generate the power. But now …" She waved an arm past Tony, to where Dara was slowly dribbling the soccer ball – the unidentified flying object that had almost taken him out a moment before – back to her. "Not to mention I don't have to worry so much about pulling a leg muscle."
Dara gave the ball one last kick, passing it to Adele, before stopping, leaning forward with her hands on her knees and gasping for air. "Jeez, girl, watch where you point that thing! I thought I was gonna … gonna have to go all the way to the beach … to retrieve it. And that … wasn't the first one … gahhh." Tony could tell she wasn't faking it, either – her own jersey (an extra-large U.S. national kit with "BOCANEGRA 3" on the back) was soaked with sweat.
Just then, Lieutenant Bragg came up. He was still holding to Tony's new dress code for him – in this case, a polo shirt, tan Bermudas and Chuck Taylors. "Good morning, sirs! Dara, you okay?"
"I will be," she groaned.
"You know what – I'll shag flies for you for a while. I used to play lacrosse at the Academy, so the running's no problem."
Dara looked up with a huge smile. "Michael, you're an officer and a gentleman." She took his hand for a second, causing Tony's other eyebrow to lift. "Hear that, Adele? Bragg in for Sanborn. I need to go chug some Powerade …" She staggered into the building, while Adele and Bragg – Michael – headed back to the makeshift soccer pitch.
They were replaced in Tony's vicinity by the physical therapist, a tall, wiry woman in a Navy T-shirt and blue jogging shorts. Her face was set in a permanently scowl, which Tony had found belied her pleasant demeanor. "Can you freaking believe that?" she remarked in a thick Joisey accent, waving toward Adele. "Not forty-eight hours after surgery, and she's Lionel freaking Messi."
"Minus the aim," Tony replied with a smirk.
"Well, yeah. But still – I'm supposed to be doing physical therapy with this broad, and what am I gonna work on? She's healthier than I am!" She put her hands on her hips and sighed. "And it's October, so I'm missing the leaves turning back east."
Rhodey crossed his arms. "Didn't I hear something about the Eastern seaboard just getting its first snow of the year?"
"Eh, there's that. Well, I guess I'd better go keep an eye on her, make sure she doesn't, I dunno, throw a piston rod or something … ah, there she goes again!" Adele had once again sent the ball off in a long and unplanned trajectory; Bragg was giving chase. "It's like she's firing 'em out of a freaking cannon …" She ran off to help Bragg track down the errant projectile.
Tony's smirk got wider. "I love the smell of a successful project in the morning …"
"Smells like victory," Rhodey finished the bowdlerized quote for him.
And as the morning turned to afternoon, the feeling of success continued. Tony and Zeke ran diagnostics on the replacement hand, first to their own satisfaction and then for the doctors. The fingers' reaction time was a hair slower than Tony would've liked – the same issue he was having with the gauntlets on his suit – but not slow enough to cause a serious problem. The M.D.s (now beyond enthused with Adele's progress) pushed for Wednesday to schedule surgery #3, and Tony, having no reason to oppose it, told them to go ahead.
That meeting had just wrapped up when Tony's PDA buzzed. He checked the screen and saw immediately that JARVIS had not only routed the call to him, but had identified its source: Cedars-Sinai. "Be good news," he said as he answered it.
Dr. Faisal was on the other end. "It is, Mr. Stark, it is. Ms. Potts' surgery was a success – we were able to widen the constricted segment of her left carotid artery, and the repairs are holding up. She's definitely looking at a few weeks of rest and recuperation, but she should be able to go home by Wednesday afternoon."
"That's … that's great!" He felt himself getting slightly misty, and let out the breath he hadn't realized he was holding.
"However, there is one complication …"
"Complication?" Tony felt his hands tense.
"… but since she's awake, I'm going to let her tell you. I do warn you, however, she is on medication for the pain, so she may seem a little … different at the moment." Tony heard the sound of the phone being passed to someone else.
And then, an ethereal-sounding voice: "Tony?"
"Hey, Pep."
"Hiiii …"
"Hi." Tony had never dealt with a stoned Pepper Potts before. It was endearing and disorienting at the same time. "How you feeling?"
"Really nice. They've given me this IV … of Darvocet." She paused for a moment, then added with a giggle, "Darvocet is wunnerful …"
Tony tried hard not to laugh. "I gather you're feeling no pain."
"None at all, none at all," Pepper confirmed spacily. "Although … I am a little, teeeeensy bit worried … about the baby ..."
"Oh, well, that's understandab … wait, about the what?"