Susan opened her eyes to dim lighting and quiet mechanical humming. She struggled to remember where she was for a moment and lifted her head, wincing at the host of aches and sores that came with sleeping in armor. Krogan-scrawled graffiti on unpainted metal walls stared back at her as she blinked. She realized she was pressed up against something – somebody – and turned her head to see Elijah, eyes closed. His armor made his breathing hard to see. In his repose, in the lighting, he looked like a corpse.

She saw Leon Michaels, struggling as the Praetorian brought his head up to its maw…

Susan got up quietly off the slab of steel that passed for krogan bedding, careful not to disturb Elijah. He still shifted and reached for her in his sleep. Witnessing that little action brought tears to her eyes; she wasn't sure why. A part of her wanted to climb back next to him, settle in his arms, and let the galaxy burn as they shut out everything.

She stared down at him for another moment before turning away. Lisa and Maiena shared the slab next to theirs, clutching each other in their sleep as if they were the only safe lifelines in an explosive decompression. On the next bed over Felix Kerranus slept on his side, arms crossed. On the last bed lay Maletha'Vael, who had her fingers laced behind her head.

Susan checked the time; they'd been asleep for nearly seven hours. She left the cabin as quietly as possible and headed for the latrines, mentally groaning at the thought of dealing with her armor. The dropship's corridors were far less crowded currently, though some people were sleeping along the edges in bedrolls. She felt a brief pang of guilt at having an actual bed, then went on her way. She trembled as she went; the aftermath of that last battle on Thessia left her body and mind running in a dozen different directions at once.

"Why don't we have windows?" Irila said as she sat on the bench next to Susan. Muted conversations sounded throughout the rectangular chamber converted into a mess hall of sorts. They each chewed on a square slab of nutrient-dense proteins and carbohydrates. The emergency relief food came wrapped in bright foil denoting which type of amino acid-based creature each block was suitable for. If Susan closed her eyes and let her imagination run wildly rampant, she could pretend it was chocolate.

"This is a dropship," she said. "It's designed to bring soldiers into dangerous places, like that last battle. Windows would be bad in those places."

"Oh." Irila ate another piece of her bar. "Are we going to the Citadel?"

"I don't know, sweetie." Susan thought about the information vacuum the soldiers currently lived in. There was no mission control, no liaison with Alliance Intelligence. Their ship wasn't even travelling under its own power and direction.

"Will we go somewhere with windows soon? I want to see space."

"I hope so." Susan gave her a little smile. "You know space is mostly empty, right?"

"I don't care. It's still pretty."

Susan paused in her chewing. How long had it been since she'd thought that? How long had it been since she'd looked at the endless expanses of the stars without thinking of the monsters that lurked among them, and the lost lives among the uncaring cosmos?

"Susan?" Irila's bar froze halfway to her mouth. "Why are you crying?"

As it turned out, they didn't go to the Citadel. The dropship vibrated as its carrier dropped out of FTL. According to Susan's omni-tool, the journey had taken over nineteen hours. The exhausted soldiers had spent a considerable portion of that time unconscious as their bodies demanded the payment of the sleep debt from their time on Thessia.

Susan was in one of the holds with Maiena giving some of the children and teenagers rudimentary biotics training when they arrived. She noticed many of the older ones hanging on Maiena's every word and action and smiled. The commando had cut quite the combination of glamor and heroism on the homeworld, and many asari had taken note. And now here they were, laying the groundwork to prepare the next generation of biotic killers.

Maiena looked up as the ship groaned from the FTL transition. "It sounds like we've arrived. Let's wrap this up; get back to your families."

The dropship gave a metallic clunk as it disengaged from its umbilical ship and the background hum changed pitch as it engaged its own engines. Susan and Maiena headed for their cabin to collect their meager packs. Susan didn't have anything left in hers besides empty bottles for water and two thermal clips.

The squad waited as the dropship landed some minutes later with a gentle thud. They stayed in the cabin as streams of refugees flooded by for the exit. Once the crowds lessened they headed out themselves. The dropship ramp led into a cavernous hangar bay that looked like a repurposed cargo hold. It certainly wasn't the Citadel; Susan didn't recognize where they might be.

Lines of refugees led to stations of aid workers that processed and directed civilians deeper into… wherever they were. More stations off to the side sported lines of soldiers, where they embarked onto shuttles constantly arriving and leaving.

"Doctor, do you know where we are?" Susan asked as Lorim Nar walked down the dropship ramp with a sporty bag over his shoulder.

"Ah, Hope Station Three. One of the major stations at the Crucible construction site."

Susan's eyes widened. "Why are we bringing refugees to the Crucible project?"

Maiena cocked her head as she looked over the processing stations. "Expertise. That was a big part of why we went to Thessia: to extract people who could help with the Crucible, either directly or through other channels, corporate and political."

Susan looked over at the line with children. "That's not why I went." She walked over to the station, where two asari handled the paperwork. They didn't look like refugees; both were dressed in stylish but functional business outfits. Susan stood before them in her scuffed and stained armor.

"How may I help you?" the asari on the right said.

"What's going to happen to the kids here?"

"Oh, we'll integrate them into our children's program."

Susan blinked. "The Crucible has a children's program?"

"Well, of course! Given the size of the project and how many project members have family it's a practical requirement. And don't worry: any new arrivals who have been near combat zones receive the finest in child counseling and therapy. Which one of these is your daughter?"

"Oh. Uh, none of them."

The asari smiled. "I see. Don't worry; they'll all receive the best care here."

"That's good to hear," Susan said, nodding. "Thank you." She turned away and walked over to Irila, who was waiting in line. She knelt down before the girl, who was still in her dirty clothes.

"Do you need to go now?"

Susan nodded, her throat tight. "I'm afraid so. There are still monsters out there to fight."

Irila threw her arms around Susan. "I'll miss you."

"I'll miss you too." A torrent of things to say swept through Susan's mind. She wanted to wish Irila well, to tell her to enjoy her childhood, to wish that the girl didn't have to grow up in the midst of this war. "You take care of yourself, alright?"

Irila nodded. "You too."

Susan released her, stepped back, and walked away towards the rest of her squad, who stood in line at one of the stations processing operatives into shuttles. Elijah turned to her, a questioning expression on his face. She gave him a little shake of her head; he nodded once and she took her place with them in the line.

"So, where are these shuttles going?" Maletha asked the Marine manning the station as he processed their omni-tool IDs.

"The Lair."

"It's here?" said Marx.

The Marine shrugged. "It is a bunch of ships stuck together. They moved it here to… help things along after Thessia."

"How many teams have come through here?" Susan asked.

"Not nearly enough."

Susan stepped off the shuttle into one of the Lair's docking bays. Shuttles from various species buzzed around her, depositing other squads. All of them still wore their armor, in various states of tear and batter after Thessia. She strode determinedly through the hatch leading deeper in, making her way through corridors that boasted fewer people than past visits. The squad followed and fell silent as they realized where she was going.

She stepped into the Information Update Center, helmet faceplate in hand. The name was a cruel euphemism. Nobody wanted to call it by its typical function: the death announcement room. A plain rectangular chamber sported screens covering all the bulkheads. Casualty listings ran like digital waterfalls across them all. Never bare, names bloated every surface, bearing silent and hideous testimony to what Thessia had cost. Operatives crowded the room; some moved between screens, searching for specific names, others sat grieving on the benches in the middle of the room.

Susan moved between the screens, sleeping in between other operatives. She glossed over the section listing N7 casualties, but one name still leapt out at her: Michaels, Leon Seamus. Her eyes flew over the other information like his species, home organization, and rank, but the glowing red status title felt like a brand to her eyes: KIA. She turned away as Lisa reached a hand out to the name and Maiena brought a hand to Lisa's shoulder.

She kept moving, looking for- there it was. She looked down the list of ship names, and her breath caught in her throat as she saw what she feared.

SSV Antietam – Systems Alliance – Frigate, Waterloo Class – Status: Lost in Action, Survivors Recovered: 0

She told herself she should stop now. But it wasn't enough. She kept looking. Damn it, why did she keep looking? There was the listing for Damon Jones, the captain who'd run his ship with quiet authority and went out of his way to accommodate the Special Ops teams. Martya Aguinaldo, always up to date with the latest gossip. She forced herself to keep reading.

Murphy, Eric – M.D. – Status: MIA

She realized… she'd never known his first name. He'd treated her for gunshot wounds, lacerations, burns, but she'd never asked him his name. She took a shaky breath as she remembered how he fussed over his tea. Always the same mug, with the proper amount of leaves and the precise amount and temperature of the water. She kept looking.

Banafsheh, Frances Darya – CAPT – Status: MIA

Susan stared at the name. MIA – God she hated that abbreviation! That one little word, missing, made fate so mysterious, so unknown, teasing, mocking in the hope that it sometimes bestowed, yet like an omni-blade carving its way through your gut at other times. All too often missing was just the coward's way of saying "they probably suffocated to death as their escape pods ran out of power."

Her vision blurred and wet heat ran down her face. "You were supposed to unwind come shore leave, Captain." Her voice broke. "You weren't supposed to be in the line of fire. You're mission control. You're supposed to guide us back, guide us home. Where does that leave us?"

"Susan?" She heard Elijah's voice, felt his hand on her arm. She looked at him; he was just a blur through her tears. She stepped back, out of his reach, shook her head sadly and angrily at him. She turned and half-fled from the room.

"Susan!" Elijah called. He took a step forward, but Lisa grabbed his arm.

"Wait," she said with a shake of her head. "Give her space. Let her… let her process."

Susan stormed through the corridors of the Lair, tears streaming down her cheeks. Nobody stopped her. In truth, she wasn't the only one. She felt like it though. She felt… she felt pulled, in different directions. She felt like a dull blade was slowly sawing into her.

She stumbled through a hatchway, uncaring of what was beyond it. An observation gallery. Fine. Two others in it, one significantly larger than the other. Fine. She staggered to one of the benches and collapsed onto it, dropping her faceplate from her hand onto the floor with a dull clatter.

Susan wept.

She wept for the lives lost on Thessia. She wept for the soldiers she'd known and fought alongside: left behind, denied even a burial.

She wept for Irila, who would likely grow up in a cosmos where her only existence would be fighting a losing war against extinction.

She wept for Banafsheh, stalwart and unpraised, perpetually working behind the scenes.

She wept for Murphy, a man who was not a warrior by any means, and who made the universe a better place for it.

She wept for Sam, who should have been here, helping to design and build this Crucible, this last light against the encroaching darkness.

And she wept for herself, though it felt selfish. She wept for the vain hopes and dreams she'd been starting to nurture, that just maybe she'd found somebody she wanted to spend her life with, that there were things to look forward to beyond the horrors of this war.

She-

"What are you crying about, Rizzi?"

Susan snapped her gaze forward as she surged to her feet, hours of training overriding her other responses. That voice… she quickly swiped a hand over her eyes, wiping away tears as she focused on the slender man in Alliance BDUs standing before her with hands clasped behind his back.

"Commander Akitaiko! Sir!" She reflexively snapped a salute to her old instructor from N7 training, eyes widening as she realized he'd been one of the occupants of the observation gallery.

The slender, shaven-headed man returned the salute. "At ease, Lieutenant." He gave her a piercing look over, then, "Sit."

She sat down, back ramrod straight, hardly daring to breathe.

"Now, what was one of my N7s crying about in a public observation gallery?"

"Nothing, sir!"

"Don't you 'nothing' me, Rizzi." He looked over her again. His voice softened. "You just got in from Thessia, didn't you?"

"Yes sir." She stared straight ahead.

Akitaiko sighed. She'd heard him sigh before, usually right after examining a trainee's performance on an exercise and right before verbally tearing them a new orifice. This was a different sigh.

"Who'd we lose?"

"Michaels."

"Leon Michaels?"

Susan nodded.

"How'd he die?"

"Holding the line against Collectors so the rest of us could escape. We… one of my squad… mercy-killed him, sir."

"Necessary, in your opinion?"

"I… yes, sir," she said quietly.

"Difficult thing." Another look. "Who else?"

"The ship we were stationed on. All of them. And our mission control, Captain Banafsheh."

"Banaf-" Akitaiko stopped and sucked in a short breath. "Not Frances Banafsheh?"

Susan looked at him in surprise. "You knew her, sir?"

A shadow passed over 'Psycho Taiko's face and he sat down on the bench next to her. "I knew her, yes. We worked several missions back when…" He trailed off. He let out a sigh; Susan had never seen or heard him act like such a… person. "I- We'll miss her. She… was a good soldier."

"Yes sir."

"And what else?"

"Sir?"

"I've seen grief before, Rizzi. There's something else there on your face, your body language."

"It's… nothing, sir."

"What did I just say about giving me the 'nothing' routine?"

Susan stiffened at his tone; she'd heard him use it once right before beating a krogan down hand-to-hand. She cleared her throat. "It… it seems pretty silly, all things considered."

"If it affects your combat readiness, it's not silly. I thought I trained you better than that."

"Yes sir." She sniffled, brought a hand up to her face. "I… I think I picked one hell of a bad time to fall in love, sir."

She realized the admission was as much for her as it was for the gruff commander. It felt oddly liberating, though it set off another cascade of tumultuous emotions within. Akitaiko let out a bark of laughter. Susan whirled, eyes flaring. He waved her down, let out another small chuckle.

"Lieutenant, allow me to share an observation with you. Nobody ever picks a good time to fall in love."

Susan blinked. Well, that was unexpected. "… Sir?"

"People have this tendency to think you can just fall in love and plug it into your existing life; have everything be the same and this great new thing called being in love. It doesn't work that way. Love is a transformative force. It always upsets the status quo, brings uncomfortable change. It magnifies us; brings out the best and the worst in each of us."

Susan blinked again. She definitely hadn't expected that. She wasn't entirely sure who Akitaiko had been talking to, either. "Um, sir, would you care to-"

"If I have to explain it to you Rizzi, you'll never understand."

Susan blinked several times. This conversation had gotten… odd. She looked at him. "Sir, that doesn't even make sense."

"Neither does life a great deal of the time." Akitaiko stood up. "Now, I'm going to go say goodbye to Frances. I suggest you get cleaned up." He headed for the door. "I recommend a shower," he said over his shoulder on the way out.

Susan sat still for another minute, trying to make sense of what had just occurred. A shadow fell over her, and she looked up- and gulped. A massive krogan, larger than most she'd seen, stood before her. He wore dirty white armor with faded markings. The battle hammer slung over his right shoulder looked like it weighed more than she did. He stared down at her for another moment and then said, "You're Rizzi."

She wanted to glance over her shoulder, see if he was talking to somebody else in the room. "Yes…"

"They never gave me a Graal."

Susan decided she was blinking an awful lot during conversations today.

"What Mark are you up to?" the krogan continued. "Five?"

"Six."

"Hmm. I'd like to give one a try someday." He reached up and scratched his chin. "You know, I was invited to visit the female clans for breeding seventeen times. All seventeen times were after performing an act of valor on the battlefield. I still have scars from fourteen of those acts. The battlefield acts, not the mating. Actually, I have some of those scars too."

"Okay…" Now Susan did glance around.

"I only ever successfully sired one child. My seventeenth visit. I always wanted a son. I would raise him up in the krogan ways. I would teach him the art of the hunt, the art of battle. You know what I got?"

"… A daughter?"

"A daughter! By the Void, I was furious. For years! Wouldn't even talk to her – or her mother."

"Okay..."

"Then one day she finished her shaman training. She asked me to attend the final ceremony. I owed her that much, I thought. Then right before she gave up her name, she walked up to me. Called me 'Father.' I knew then what a fool I'd been. She was my daughter. My daughter. I'd been so angry about not getting what thought I wanted that I'd missed what was right in front of me." He stared out at nothing for a moment, then looked down at Susan. "I'm going to go see if they'll give me a Graal."

The krogan left the room, his footsteps thudding on the deck. Susan sat still as she digested the conversations she'd just had. She picked up her fallen faceplate, looked down at its scarred surface. She looked up, out the observation gallery's window, and the breath left her lungs at the sight. She stood up, walked up to the window.

The partly finished Crucible hung in the void before her. Construction scaffolding enclosed a gargantuan sphere with a long cylindrical spar extending from one side. Plates, gears, parts, studded every surface. Ships danced endlessly to and fro from end to end. Calling it big was an understatement; it dwarfed the dreadnoughts guarding it. At a glance, she'd estimate its scale to be comparable to the Citadel.

Here floated the last hope, some would say the only hope, of the allied races. Susan gazed at the project in awe. This… project, this effort, was unprecedented. The scale and level of cooperation exhibited by… just about every known species. The staggering, mind-blowing cost. The amount of resources poured into it. Nobody even knew what it was supposed to do, much less whether or not it would actually work. But it was a message, she realized. Extinction had come for them – all of them, and they would spit in its eye and fight it with everything even as the galaxy burned.

She reached a hand out and pressed it to the window. At this distance, her hand eclipsed the spherical portion of the Crucible. It was like holding the great weapon against the Reapers in her hand. It was like holding hope in her hand. The fireworks of emotion within her hit another peak. Another tear ran down her face as she realized there were other things she also wanted to hold.

Susan pressed the door buzzer tentatively. There hadn't been time for any reassignments, so he should still have this cabin, but she wasn't sure if he- The door slid open. Elijah Wu stood in the doorway, clad in his armor's black undersuit with a toothbrush in his mouth. His brown eyes exhibited the same recent exhaustion that they all felt. He took the toothbrush out of his mouth.

"Susan. Are you…"

"Can I… use your shower?" She gave him a hesitant smile.

He nodded and stepped aside to let her enter. She walked into the little cabin, suddenly a little unsure of herself again. Seeing him set off a dozen different feelings. She looked at his armor, neatly stacked and arranged in the corner. His sword lay in its sheath on the little desk along one bulkhead. How like him to have done all that before seeing to himself. She looked at him again. She didn't trust herself to say anything right then, so she just started unbuckling and stripping off her armor. Unlike him, she let the various pieces lay where they fell. She'd clean it up later.

She looked back up at him when she was down to her own skintight undersuit. Susan felt her heart rate speed up as she looked at Elijah's unshaven face. His eyes looked back at her with a mix of concern, compassion, acceptance- and hunger. She stripped down the rest of the way, hesitant. The grime felt like a solid layer coating her.

Elijah stepped into the little bathroom. "Nice thing about being here: lots of fresh provisions from the construction site," he said. "There's hot water, as much as you want."

Susan stepped in after him. Elijah stood at the sink, brushing his teeth. He met her eyes in the mirror and indicated the shower head with a tilt of his head. There were no partitions, just one chromed section in the little space, with a drain in the floor. She'd seen bigger closets, honestly. She brushed past him and felt him stir gently as she put a hand on his shoulder briefly.

She stepped under shower head and turned the faucet knob gently and closed her eyes at the sensation of warm water sluicing over her. A sob wracked through her and she turned, falling back against the wall under the slow drizzle of water. She'd set it so low that it was more of a constant drip than a spray. She slid down the wall, barely feeling the cold metal against her back as she curled up with her knees almost at her chin.

Elijah looked at her, his own eyes wet. "Do you want me to leave?"

She closed her eyes for a moment, then shook her head and stretched out a hand limply towards him. Still in his armor's undersuit, he stepped over and sat down next to her. He wrapped an arm around her as they sat under the shower's gentle droplets. Her body shook with sobs as her tears blended with the warm water running down them both from above.

The tears felt different from before. They felt like a gun brush scouring out the innards of an overworked rifle, expunging the built-up grime and residue. She wept as Elijah silently stroked her shoulders all the while. As the minutes passed, with each sob and tear she felt… lighter. A current ran through her, from crown to heel, down her arms and legs, through to the tips of each finger and toe. The entirety of her body felt like it was vibrating a hundred times a second.

She felt… alive.

And for once in a long time, she didn't feel guilty about it.

And she realized that sometime in the last however long, sitting cramped in the tiny shower, knees curled to her chest, brown hair plastered to her face, she'd navigated an internal bend. The sensation settling down upon her, aside from the continuing flowing current, was… well, it wasn't exactly peace. But she could see it from here, and that was just fine for the moment.

The last sobs and sniffles passed away. She brought up a hand and brushed her mop of hair out of her face, releasing a quaky breath as she did so. She leaned her head onto Elijah's shoulder, and finally grew aware of how soaked his thin black undersuit had gotten sitting under the shower with her.

"Better, ahuvati?" he murmured by her ear.

She shifted, bringing more of her bare skin in contact with him. "Better." She tucked her head into his shoulder, felt the smooth fabric of the undersuit beneath her cheek. "What was that you called me?"

"Um, an old Hebrew term of… endearment."

Susan wiped off her face, then looked at Elijah, who was trying his hardest to stare straight ahead. She waited until he turned his face to hers, then leaned forward and kissed him- and drew back quickly.

"What's wrong?" he said. She'd scrunched her face up into an expression not dissimilar to her first whiff of kakliosaur.

Susan shook her head. "You need a shave," she said, and then erupted in quiet laughter at the absurdity of it all. She stroked his face, ran her fingers over the rough stubble on his chin as his chest also shook with laughter.

Elijah grinned. "I was getting to that. But somebody keeps barging in and using me for my shower."

"I believe it's a mutually beneficial… relationship." She leaned in, kissed him again, and drew back even faster than before. "Hmm, no. Shave, now."

"Yes ma'am."

"And then…" She plucked at his soaked undersuit. "I think we'd better get you out of these wet clothes, soldier."

He made a rumbling noise from deep within his chest that sent a thrill through Susan's spine… and other parts. "Yes ma'am."

A thought pierced the blissful haze of Susan's mind. She sat up in the little bed that hadn't been meant for two. "Oh, crap."

"What is it?" Elijah sat up beside her, stroking her shoulder.

Susan sighed. "I just realized I have no clothes."

"Really? Because I've been very aware for the last-"

"Not like that," Susan said with a grin. Then the grin faded. "My kitbag… BDUs, spare clothes, everything, was on the Antietam."

"Oh." His arms wrapped around her from behind and she leaned back into him, feeling the gentle pulse of his heartbeat against her back. "I'm sorry."

"Yeah. I'll miss the people more than the clothes, but right now…"

"Kind of need the clothes?"

Susan groaned. "Yeah."

They both jumped as Elijah's computer trilled with a message alert. He got up, stepped over their discarded towel, and called up the message. He read it over for several seconds and groaned. "You've gotta be kidding me."

"What happened?" Susan felt her heart fall. Not another mobilization alert… She knew it was petty, but she really didn't want to get back into her dirty undersuit. She began mentally steeling herself to pick it up as she stood up.

"It's just for me. There's a meeting in ten minutes for quarian and geth integration analysis."

"What? Is that still going on? Even after Thessia?"

"Never underestimate the tenacity of bureaucracy," Elijah said, sighing. "I swear, the bureaucrats will be the last things the Reapers-" He broke off. "Sorry, not funny."

Susan stepped in, kissed him. "That's incentive enough to beat them then, isn't it?"

"Good point."

He glanced down. "I'm sorry, but…"

"Duty calls. We'd- You'd better get dressed then."

"I do have some spares in the dressers here," Elijah said. "They're not exactly your size, but they're clean."

"I'll take it." Susan stepped back – and nearly tripped over one of her discarded boots. "Gah!"

"That's why I stack my armor up neatly."

"Fine, you get to do the housecleaning in the future." The retort slipped out of her without conscious thought and she froze. Looked at him in a half-panic.

He looked back at her with an inquisitive expression. "Deal." He broke the moment with a nod towards the little metal drawer protruding from the bulkhead. "Underclothes and socks in the top drawer, shirts middle, and pants bottom."

She grabbed two of each set, one for each of them. They dressed together in the little cabin. Elijah looked normal, like he should. No surprise. Susan on the other hand…

"This is ridiculous."

"You don't look that…" He broke off as she raised an eyebrow at him. "Alright, that looks pretty bad."

The shirt was too long, and alternately too loose or too tight in different places. The pants were no better, and needed to be cinched up too much at the waist while it chafed uncomfortably at her hips. She'd needed to roll the pant legs up multiple folds to have her heels actually sticking out all the way. The whole ensemble hung off her strangely, like she was an unevenly stuffed scarecrow.

Susan ran a hand through her hair and blinked at Elijah. "You take a blow to the head on Thessia? You're looking at me like I'm wearing that evening gown from the Citadel."

Elijah shrugged. "It's the person inside the outfit that counts."

"Good answer." She reached out and adjusted the fit of his shirt. "You'd better get going to make that meeting on time."

"Right. Oh here, before I go. Let me sync your omni-tool so you have free access to the cabin. It's not exactly a mansion on Bekenstein."

"It's the person you share it with that counts."

He smiled and kissed her gently. "Alright, I'd better get to this meeting." He sighed. "Time to deal with military bureaucracy."

"You're not the only one. I need to go see Procurement about getting some clothes."

He arched an eyebrow. "This will end well."

"Oh come on, there are always spares in stock. It's Alliance-issue BDUs. Even they can't screw that up."