Author note: Thanks to everyone who's reviewed! You guys are awesome. And speaking of awesome things (or possibly it's an awesome thing) the Plot's receiving a big ol' kickstart today! All downhill from here, folks. All downhill from here. (Maybe I should invest in a sled for the rest of November?)

NaNoWriMo word count: 22,016


Chapter Eleven – We All Fall Down

Marek ran through the crowded corridors of the space station, heart hammering and adrenaline lending a primal glitter to all that he ducked past, weaved around or jumped over. Finally he reached the private docking port where he and John had secured the ship a month or two earlier.

"Cancel it!"

John's fingers paused on the airlock controls, which he'd been programming.

"Cancel it," Marek panted. "Don't bother. Stop."

"I have?" John gave his frown a split-second to form before he aimed it at Marek. "Oi, Lieutenant Road-runner. Air in, explanation out."

"Just—" Marek coughed and forced air into his lungs. And out again. And managed to relax a smidge. "Just got a broadcast from Major Tulsen, back at headquarters. Trouble."

"Marek, stop beating about the—"

"Agency's going down."

Pause. And then... "What?"

Marek gulped in another breath and decided that instead of trying to give a breathless explanation, which John would only pick at and make all the more breathless, he would just show John the damned message.

He flipped open his wrist strap as John paced, and a few beeps later, Major Tulsen's portly, bearded face – made grainy and pale blue by the hologram technology – flickered into existence between John and Marek, projected from Marek's vortex manipulator.

"Haven't got much time, so I don't know how many this'll reach. Everything's closing off faster than a Glacyod's sphincter." The major paused. "Weird things, they tighten up when you shoot them?" He paused again and shook off the errant thought (though some of the Agents who'd known him in the past/present/future would have argued that that was most of his head, and shaking one's own head off is hardly to be advised). "Anyway. Everything's closing off and closing down and Management all seem to have vanished. And so has their stationery. Opportunistic bastards."

John snorted.

"The place is chaos. Don't bother coming back. Not till things have cooled off, and Jezeq's munchin only knows how long that'll take. Best not to bother, I know the moment I'm off this rock—"

The hologram of Major Tulsen froze mid-sentence.

"That's all there was," Marek murmured, closing it down.

John stared at the spot where the hologram had been. Then he blinked the blankness away and frowned up at Marek.

"Why the hell didn't you just send me this?" he asked. Well. He thought he was asked. Marek knew it was a demand.

"What," said Marek, eyebrow quirking, "and miss my chance for a dramatic entrance?" He scowled a little, a trait picked up from John. "I wasn't exactly thinking straight, Captain, and if we're going to bicker about not thinking straight—"

John grunted. Marek shut up. John ran his hands through his hair and paced in a circle. "Fuck."

"My sentiments exactly..."

The pair of them were interrupted from their brooding silence by a faint beep from John's wrist strap. Incoming broadcast. John brought it up. And blinked at the person who flickered into existence several feet from him.

"Captain Denovan," he murmured, brows rising, "this is a surprise."

The woman had a crop of short hair (hard to tell what colour, when the hologram was composed of various shades of blue), wore a multi-pocketed tunic over tight trousers and long sleeved jersey, and there was a pair of well worn leather combat boots from some era or another buckled around her feet and calves. There was also a gun-belt buckled around her waist, with... what looked to be a knife sheath and also a screwdriver sheath attached beside the gun holsters, and she had a long white scar running down her right cheek.

The woman's brows rose right back at John. "That's Director Denovan to you, Hastern."

"Hart," John said, mildly enough.

Lindsa Denovan, once second-lieutenant, once lieutenant, once captain, once partner of a young, reckless Time Agent by the name of Jonathan Holster, rolled her eyes. The man hadn't changed. Or he had, and that was the problem. Always the names...

"Then that's Director Denovan to you, Hart. Can I get on with this now?"

John dipped into a half-arsed bow and managed not to snigger. "By my guest, Director. Be my guest."

"You got Tulsen's broadcast, I take it?"

"Just now, yeah." John grinned a little. "Where does that put you and your little dominion, Director Denovan?"

Lindsa allowed herself a glare. "Safe, hopefully. We got wind of the trouble several weeks back. Been trying to shut off all connections and stockpile resources since then."

"The other Agency outposts?"

"Taken apart by opportunistic high-ups, take over by opportunistic high-ups or just plan missing."

"Missing?" asked Marek.

The woman in the hologram glanced at him. "Missing," she repeated. "Either they've gone underground or they've been made never to exist."

"Ah."

After a bit of a curious frown in Marek's general direction (hologram's were never entirely accurate), Lindsa returned her attention to John.

John regarded her, his cool eyed calculation translating even through the holographic technology and over Deity knows how many light-years. It made Lindsa's lips twitch even as she stood in front of one of the Medusa Cascade station's communication terminals.

"And what's this got to do with us, Director Denovan?"

"Who's with you?"

John rolled his eyes. "Get to the point, would you, Lindsa? What do you want?"

A few moments of slightly crackling silence passed.

"I need more people here," Lindsa said. "People who I can trust."

John's brows went up a bit. "And I fall into that category now, do I?"

"For the time being, yes, you do. Necessity demands it.,"

Marek chuckled, and Lindsa glanced at him. "And you are?"

"Lieutenant Marek Takashi, ma'am."

John bit his lower lip and managed not to snigger. That would have been quite undignified, you see. Ahem.

"Director," said Lindsa, the temperature of her voice dropping all of a sudden.

Marek seemed surprised. John was just plain amused.

"Pardon?" said Marek.

"Director, not ma'am. Or 'sir', if you can't manage three syllables."

She and Hart knew each other? Marek could believe that. "My apologies, Director."

"There's the four of us," John said, finally answering Lindsa's original question. "Me, Marek and Alphonse LeLouch."

Lindsa's eyes narrowed. "You can vouch for him, then? For them?"

"I can," said John, at the same time as Marek said, "We can."

There was a brief exchange of looks before the two men returned their attentions to the woman in the hologram. She looked slightly amused. But only slightly.

"Well, make arrangements for your extra, then I'll get the three of you—"

"No."

Lindsa raised an eyebrow. "No, Captain?"

"The extra comes with," said John. "I'll work for you, Lindsa. I'll help with whatever little projects you're trying to run over there, but the extra gets room and board, no questions answered."

"Don't you mean 'no questions asked'?"

"Well, you're asking one now, so no."

Lindsa begrudgingly grunted a laugh, then considered John for a long moment.

John waited.

"Fine," said Lindsa.

"Thank you." John inclined his head in an almost bow.

Marek watched the two of them with a sort of detached curiosity.

"Oh," said John. "We've got a ship, too. Small one. Almost a shuttle."

"'We' being the three of you plus one?"

"No," Marek interjected. "Just the two of us, this time."

Lindsa eyed them both. "You both own one ship?" The eyeing was just for John, then. "... you're sharing?"

"Hey, I know how to share!"

The looks John got off Marek and Lindsa, then... almost indescribable. (But the author is going to try anyway.) You could certainly tell they'd both been John's partners along the line, such was the fond withering-ness of the expressions they pointed in his general direction.

John stuck his tongue out at them.

"Drunken card game," Marek explained to Lindsa.

"Ah," the woman said. A lot could be explained by drunken card games, especially ones that involved one Captain john Hart (or whatever name he was going by at the time). She herself knew of several historical events that might not have worked out the way they did (or that might have, but nobody would ever know, now) if it weren't for John Hart and his haphazard, sometimes inebriated, often brilliant, always reckless actions and ideas.

"Gather your stuff together in the ship, then. If you can wire in—"

John snorted and rolled his eyes. "That's toddler's work, Linny. Yes," he said, voice oozing sarcastic patience, "I can wire a vortex manipulato into the ship's systems for you to get a complete lock on it."

Lindsa regarded the man coolly." "That was going to be a rhetorical question, you know."

"Was it? How sad."

Lindsa sighed.

John grinned.

Marek... continued to look slowly between the two of them.

"Send me a wave when you're ready, then."

"Will do, Director."

They regarded each other for a moment longer, and then Lindsa flicked John half a smile before cutting the connection.

Marek tongued the inside of his cheek while John closed up his wrist strap (the click of it seemed to drift down the space station's corridor) and stuck his hands in his trouser pockets.

"Well then," he said.

"Yeah," murmured Marek. He looked down at his partner and superior officer.

John, aware of the attention, tipped his head back so their gazes met. "You want to?"

"Want to what?" said Marek.

"Pole dance to the Battle Hymn of the Republic. What do you think?" John's tone took an almost uncharacteristically patient turn. Went a bit softer, too. "Do you want to go and work for our dear Director Denovan and whoever else she's scraped together over there?"

"Over there?" Marek frowned down at John. "What the hell's she director of, anyway, sir?"

"You heard of the Medusa Cascade?"

Marek nodded. "Yeah. Dangerous place."

"Well, she heads the Agency outpost there, monitoring the Rift. Has done for years now."

"Huh," said Marek. He wet his lips and glanced away, brows furrowing ever so slightly. Almost everything the man did was slight. Except for when he was punching you in the face. "I... don't know." Marek looked back at John. "Is this an actual question, or just a politely disguised demand?"

John snorted. "Yes, it's an actual question. No Agency anymore, Marek. Apparently. No hierarchy but that which we make for ourselves."

Marek eyed him. "Did you just quote that last bit from somewhere?"

"It's very possible."

Marek's turn to snort, it would seem. Then to look away again. "I do want to. I think. Maybe."

"Yeah?"

Marek nodded. "Not like I've got anyone besides you and Lu." Pause. Snort. "And isn't that just a charming thought."

"Ah," said John. He looked away, too. "There is that, yeah."

The silence stretched for a while as John paced some more and Marek watched him. Then Marek said, quietly, "What now, sir?"

John's booted feet tapped out an absent rhythm on the floor's grating. "Now... now I carry on with what I was doing, prepping the shuttle, you go tell LeLouch what's happening, and we'll meet up in a few hours back at the apartment."

"I think a shopping trip or two could be wise, before... how are we getting to the Medusa Cascade, anyway?"

"I'll wire my wrist strap into the ship's systems, then Lindsa and her team will lock onto it using the technology they developed to manipulate the Rift... and poof we go."

"Worse than travelling by vortex?"

John shook his head. "Smoother. Way smoother."

Marek made a thoughtful noise.

"Right, new plan. You deal with LeLouch and start packing up at the apartment, and I'll finish prepping the shuttle and deal with Gray."

"Sounds good to me, sir." And it did, rather. If anyone had noticed the way Marek had been avoiding the kid, they hadn't commented. (Well, not avoiding him, per say. Just spending as little time with him as was physically possible. Which was still more than Marek would have liked.)

There was just something about Gray, something wrong, and all of Marek's alarm bells were going off.


Author note the second: Anyone who's read my last NaNoWriMo story And Then Some will recognise Lindsa from there. Anyone who hasn't... well... it's young Jack Harkness and young John Hart getting stuck together for five years, (or two weeks, depending) and I lost the remains of my sanity writing it. Good month, all told. Very good month.