Unsurprisingly the money Ban won from Shido didn't last long. The parking meter maids were out in full force this season and they doled out their punishments with about as much mercy as an Undead's punches. This was bad enough, but when sickness came knocking on the door of a certain retriever-transporter couple, more money was lost to purchases of medicine and supplies, as Ban tried to forge on in spite of the cold's stubbornness. They needed money, he had jobs – and his pride. Stupid little germs weren't going to get him down.

But his cantankerous companion might. It didn't take Akabane long to figure out what was wrong with his unusually secretive lover, and when he did he was not pleased. He stood imperiously in the doorway, blocking Ban's path. "Where do you think you're going?"

"Out."

"Oh no, you're not. Your temperature is three degrees above normal. That's a fever, Midou-kun."

Ban rolled his eyes and coughed. "Thank you, Doctor Obvious."

Akabane shook his head. "You're not going anywhere in your condition. Get back into bed where you belong."

Ban pondered whether he had the strength to just plow right through him. "I have a job, Jackal."

"It can wait. If the client has any sense of decency whatsoever, they'll understand. Now, to rest with you." Akabane motioned for him to return to the bedroom.

Ban refused to budge. "It's money, Jackal!"

Akabane favored him with a fond but stern smile. "It's always money with you. When will you learn that money doesn't bring happiness?"

Ban snorted, and then wished he hadn't because it started up the snot factory again. "It does to me," he muttered as he wiped his nose on his shirt sleeve. "I've been keeping score on the ledger. We'll come up short on our Europe funds if I don't go," he pointed out. "Trust me, I've slogged through worse conditions than this before you came along."

"Well, that's why you have me now," Akabane said smugly. "Someone has to look after your health, since you refuse to do it yourself."

"I don't need a babysitter," Ban snapped, on the tail end of a sneeze that morphed into a cough.

"No," Akabane agreed. "What you need is medicine, a hot cup of chicken noodle soup, and most importantly – " he blocked Ban again when the other would have made a beeline for the door – "plenty of rest."

Ban's patience was at its limit. "Jackal, I'm warning you. I'm in no mood for this shit. Just get out of my way so we can both get on with our lives."

Akabane's eyes narrowed and his spine stiffened. "Midou-kun, I'm going to count to three," he said, his voice slipping into dangerously chilled territory. "If you aren't back in that bed by the time I reach two and a half, I will drag you there myself, snake bites or no snake bites."

"Ha!" Ban coughed, and then several more times when his lungs decided now was a good chance to seize on a phlegm-fit. "I'd like to see you try it!"

Akabane raised a scalpel. "One – "

"Forget it. It's not happening."

"Two – " Another scalpel popped up.

"You're not scaring me one ounce, Jackal!" Ban tensed, preparing to bulldoze his way to the door.

"Three – " They both moved at the same time, a blurring of forms so quick even an experienced fighter would have had trouble tracking them. Even as bad as he felt, Ban still managed to dodge the gloved hands that made a grab for him and got to the door unscathed. He yanked it open and was halfway down the hall before he spun and shot Akabane a taunting smirk.

"Don't wait up, Jackal! Told you – the great Ban Midou always gets his way!" He let loose an explosive sneeze for emphasis.

Akabane stood in the doorway of their apartment, a coolly bemused smile lurking upon his lips. "However do you plan to impress the client like that, Midou-kun?"

"Huh?"

"It's rather hard to make a good impression without the proper attire…"

Even as Akabane said it Ban was cursing, grabbing desperately at the pieces of his shirt – and his pants – and his underwear! – as they fluttered to the floor like so many snowflakes. He was left standing stark naked in the middle of the hallway, and any second any of the other tenants in the building could come out from nowhere –

"You crazy sonofabitch!" he hissed as loud as he dared, scooting back inside the safety of the apartment.

Akabane stood with one hand perched on a shapely hip, the other twiddling a knife between his fingers while he watched the jog of shame. "Flattery will get you nowhere. Bed. Now," he announced sharply. "Or do I have to resort to stricter methods to get my point across?"

"This isn't over," Ban growled, and was saved by the trill of his cell phone. "See? That's probably Hevn now, wondering where the hell me and Ginji are!"

But Akabane had anticipated this as well, and was already snatching up the traitorous device and flipping it open. "Hello? Hevn-san, how nice to hear from you. No, I'm sorry, but Ban-kun can't come tonight," he said smoothly, fending off Ban's furiously sputtering advances. "He's got a rather nasty cold, and I'm keeping him under observation just in case. I do hope you're able to find other arrangements for your assignment…Yes, perhaps it would be best to contact Fuyuki-san – "

"What?" Ban was livid. He clawed at Akabane, trying to grab his phone back. "Give MY job to that mangy monkey-trainer? Don't you dare, Hevn!" he shouted as close to the receiver as he could get before Akabane shoved him back with several bristling scalpels.

" – and a very pleasant evening to you too, Hevn-san," Akabane chirped, ending the call with a flick of the case. He tossed the phone aside to direct his full attention to Ban, clearing his throat deliberately as he raised a hand. "Bloody Stream."

"JACKAL YOU BASTARD!" It wasn't easy, dodging knives and thinking up colorful insults at the same time, but Ban managed well enough, making it to the bedroom in time to slam the door on a cloud of scalpels that planted themselves in it as if it were a giant dartboard. Ban waited until the last blade had thudded into silence, then flung open the door again and snarled, "What the hell was that for!"

Akabane approached and leaned against the wall, smiling now that he knew he'd won this round. "Crude, but effective. Now, are you going to put your pajamas on and get into bed, or do I have to go to the Sagittarius next?"

Ban considered further rebellion, but his outburst had drained considerable energy, and he suddenly felt woozy. He also wasn't keen on experiencing firsthand how Akabane's bloody immobilization attack worked. "Fine." He sneezed. "You're a real fuckin' pain in the ass, you know that, Jackal?" He sneezed again, and again, as he stomped over to the dresser and yanked open a drawer in search of clothing. "I could have had us some money!"

"Yes, and you would have escalated yourself straight into pneumonia," Akabane reprimanded as he recalled his scalpels from the bedroom door. "Cold damp weather is terrible for that sort of thing, Midou-kun, and you already do untold damage to yourself with that wretched smoking of yours - "

Ban stopped in the act of pulling a pant leg up and glared. "Don't start," he hacked out.

"See? That's exactly what I'm talking about," Akabane said. "You don't need to make things any harder on your lungs by going out and pushing yourself all for the sake of a few lousy yen. Money can be replaced. You cannot," he finished on a fonder note as he came closer and helped Ban finish struggling into the pajama top, ignoring his lover's ineffective attempts to bat him away. "Sit down and let me have a better look at you."

"I'm in no mood to play doctor with you," Ban snapped as he finished dressing and downed a handful of throat lozenges. God, how Fuyuki was going to rub this in his face, that jackass. "Just let me stew in my little pharmaceutical cocktail of misery, all right?"

Akabane raised a brow. "Bloody Sag - "

"All right! All right! Jeez!" Ban huffed as he plopped onto the edge of their bed.

Akabane smiled. "I knew you'd see things my way." He took a small flashlight from one of the nightstands and stood in front of Ban, stooping slightly to examine him as he switched it on. "Hmm. Your eyes are fine – no, don't you try Jaganing me, Midou-kun! - yes, you do have that fever..." He switched off the flashlight and pressed his fingers along the sides of Ban's throat, not missing the way the other man winced at the touch, much though Ban tried to cover it. "Put your tongue out and say 'ahh' for me."

"Isn't this how skin flicks get started?"

"You should be thankful I'm not using one of my scalpels as a tongue depressor."

"Heh. Saving that for the thermometer's place, are we?"

"Open, please."

"Bite me."

"Really, Midou-kun." Akabane's lips thinned. "You are being a most uncooperative patient."

"Well hang on to your hat, 'cause it ain't getting any better," Ban growled in mid-cough.

Akabane thought for a moment. "I have one word for you. Enema." Purple eyes caught blue and held them in a challenge.

"You wouldn't dare."

Scalpels hissed forth. "Try me."

"Shiiiiiiiit...!"

"'Ahh' will do just fine instead, thank you."

Ban resisted the urge to punch something. He really was feeling lousy now. Sighing loudly, he opened his mouth and spat out the lozenges into his palm before sticking out his tongue. "Ahh. Eh you hahee how?"

"Hush, so I can have a look here." Akabane switched the flashlight on again and aimed it at the inside of Ban's mouth. "Mmm. Yes, you are rather swollen in there. I don't think it's strep, although I can't confirm that without a culture." He produced a single knife. "Hold very still for me, please. This won't take but a second." And before Ban could slam his jaws shut in protest, Akabane stuck the tip of the scalpel down the retriever's throat, heedless of the other man's gagging surprise. "There we go. Just as I thought, it's your average variety common cold."

"Goddamn, warn a guy before you do that, huh!"

"How long have we been together, Ban-kun? You should be used to having my knives in unusual places by now, hmm?" Akabane teased as he wiped the blade off and put it away. He turned off the flashlight and leaned forward to kiss Ban on the forehead. "Don't worry. I can get you some medicine that will fix this up nicely."

"Great." Ban indulged in a fit of sneezing before eating his lozenges again and falling back onto the bed. "Now can I just die here in peace, please?"

"Of course. Rest is very important for you right now." Akabane waited until Ban had crawled completely onto the mattress and then drew the covers up over him. "I'll go and get you your medicine. In the meantime, you are to get plenty of sleep, drink lots of liquids, and under no circumstances are you leaving this room until you're recovered. Is that clear?"

"So I suppose getting up to pee when I have to is out of the question?" Ban drawled. "Well, that hat of yours is pretty waterproof, it'd probably make a decent bedpan..."

Akabane was not amused. "You know what will happen if you defile my hat. If I catch you out of this bed for any reason other than proper lavatory use, I will borrow Kazuki-san's threads and sew you to it myself – skin first!"

"Hmph. So much for having a compassionate physician. Ever hear of that Hippocratic oath thing?"

Akabane smirked as he twirled a scalpel between his fingers. "It's not technically binding."

XX

Illness, or, as Ban sourly referred to it, "the plague," settled into the Midou-Akabane household with all the grace of a lumbering elephant. Ban may not have been enjoying himself, but Akabane was in his element, which of course riled the infirm patient twice as much.

"Do you have to be so goddamn smug about feeding me that poison you call medicine?" Ban complained one day. "Why can't you just do a Florence Nightingale and give me something that tastes like actual healing for once!"

"You forget, dearest, that if I wasn't so fond of you, I wouldn't be taking care of you in the first place," Akabane cheerfully told him as he doled out another spoonful of the vilest-tasting syrup in existence. "And the worse it tastes, the more good it will do you. That's conventional wisdom. Here you go..."

Ban held his breath and reluctantly swallowed the repulsive medicine. Once he'd finished gagging on it, he glared at Akabane. "Conventional wisdom can suck my balls. We can split atoms and create our own virtual realities. Why the hell can't somebody out there invent a medicine that doesn't taste like rancid shit warmed over?"

"Now, Ban-kun. You know what they say. No pain, no gain." Akabane put the cap back on the medicine bottle and set it on the nightstand. "To correct your earlier assumption, the Nightingale standard only applies to nurses, not doctors."

"Hah. So that's why you insist on torture. Oh. Ugh. Kleenex - !"

Akabane tugged out a slip of tissue from the nearby box and passed it to Ban to stem the sudden flood of mucus pouring out of his nose. "I doubt you'd receive much more sympathy from a nurse than you get from me. Nurses are professionals too. Those in healthcare have to maintain a certain detachment from their clients."

"Tell that to the gaggle of nurses the monkey trainer and I had to put up with once. They had a cow when their matron forbade them to correspond with male patients, so they hired us to retrieve a bunch of love letters." Ban sniffled. He blew his nose in the already-saturated tissue again and flung the wad aside, not caring that it missed the wastebasket by a mile. It joined the dozens of others like it scattered across the floor. "Not that that matters because that stupid clown-joker ended up swiping the whole deal out from under our noses!"

Akabane didn't smile. "Fraternization rules exist for a reason, Ban-kun. Nurses and doctors cannot become involved with their patients because then they cannot objectively treat someone. However is a surgeon to do his job properly if he spends the entire time fretting over a lover when that same lover is on the operating table awaiting intensive surgery? One's mind must be focused on the task at hand, not on emotional folly, lest irreparable mistakes be made."

Ban grabbed for the box of tissues, which Akabane passed to him. He used up three more tissues before answering. "Look, I get the importance of prioritizing, and I'm not arguing that. But don't nurses and doctors have feelings too? Everybody gets a little craving for fun, what's so wrong about that?" He sneezed. "You know, in spite of the torments and lack of bedside manner, you're not too bad at this doctoring gig. At least you know your shit. I've had doctors who couldn't tell their asses from a hole in the ground. I'm lucky none of them prescribed leeches for me." Ban sent several more wads of used tissue sailing towards their floorbound destiny. "How come you gave up medicine, Kuroudo?"

Akabane lowered his eyes. "You know why."

Ban scrunched some pillows for leverage and reached for his mate's hand. "'Course I do. I just want to hear you say it."

Akabane was quiet for a few minutes, letting Ban stroke his palm. Then he smiled and bent over to kiss his cheek. "Now is not the time for such unpleasant discussions. You should be resting."

"I am resting. I've been resting since this last weekend. I'm tired of resting. You won't even let me out of here to read or watch TV," Ban complained. "Even Aesclepius is sick of solitary. I'm getting muscle cramps in my right arm. My hand's been twitchier than Fudou on a crack-Aphrodite-cocktail bender!"

Akabane considered this. "I will permit you access to the living room, so long as you promise me you won't overdo yourself. And I still want you to take things easy for a while, Ban-kun. Your body is replenishing its immune system from its battles with the virus. You don't need a relapse."

"I Ban Midou do solemnly swear that I will park my butt on the couch and not move it unless you say so with instructions written in permanent non-blood-based ink," Ban said in between sniffles. "You don't have to go back to being a surgeon. You could do stuff that isn't so blood-and-guts. Allergy specialist, pediatrician, those kinds of things... Chiropractors make good money, don't they? Oh, I know. Acupuncture. There's the ticket. You can still stick people with pointy things without killing them."

Akabane smiled, forever tolerant of his lover's foibles. He leaned over again and kissed Ban's mouth. "Hush. I will see what I can do regarding suitable entertainment, hmm?"

"A shower trip sometime would be nice too. My head itches and my pjs could get up and walk on their own by now." Ban squirmed around in the sheets, trying to get comfortable. "Told you this wasn't gonna come easy. I warned you, I'd be the worst patient you ever had."

Akabane hesitated. "Actually, no," he said slowly. "There was one gentleman years ago who would hold claim to that distinctive title…"

"Oh yeah?" Ban filled his hands with more kleenex as a precaution and flopped back against the pillows. "What'd he do, throw a bedpan at you?"

"And the food tray, and his IV pole, and the first lieutenant," Akabane replied as he began sorting through the other medicines on the nightstand. "The other medics were quite terrified of him. Semimaru had to help me hold him down in order to administer treatment. But I can't say as I blame the poor man for his temper, really; he was suffering from a kidney stone."

"Ouch."

"Yes, they're very painful. It's time for these now. Open wide."

Ban obeyed, knowing he wouldn't have to taste them, and Akabane popped the pills into his mouth, handing him a glass of water to wash them down. "Very good."

"You know what'd be even better than pills?"

"What?"

Ban leered. "A little Marvin Gaye medicine. Ehh?"

Akabane blinked. His tastes in music didn't always coincide with Ban's. "Beg your pardon?"

Ban dredged up some song lyrics to a pop tune he'd once heard. "'Doctor, doctor, gimme the news, I gotta bad case of lovin' you...' Come on, haven't you ever heard of 'sexual healing?'"

"How clever." Now that he grasped the meaning Akabane pursed his lips. "You must be on the road to improvement, if you can say such things. Dare I hope that this means you'll take me out for a sparring match soon?"

"I'm not that improved."

"Mm-hmm."

"I have a cold, not amoebic dysentery. Sex does boost the immune system," Ban pointed out.

"And stress weakens it," Akabane returned without batting an eye as he got up from the bed. "Now. Get some rest, and I'll be back later to check on you and bring you some dinner."

"Please not chicken noodle soup again."

"It's the best thing for you. It's light on the stomach and has healthy properties. Even animals cut back on their meals when they're ill, Ban-kun."

"I'm not an animal, I'm a human, and this human gets tetchy if he has to subsist on the same thing for three days in a row. They do make other soups besides chicken noodle, you know." Ban's sneeze rattled the windows. "I still say a little nooky would be beneficial to my treatment regiment. Or are doctors not allowed to be horny either?"

Akabane paused to admire the considerable tent forming in the bedsheets. "Oh, they're allowed. But they are experts at developing a resistance to any unprofessional wiles, so I'm afraid your temptations will go neglected."

"You're missing out. I'm an invalid. Totally at your mercy." Ban spread his arms across the bed. "You could administer any treatment you wanted, and I'd be too weak to stop you."

"Careful, Ban-kun," Akabane chuckled. "Any treatment? That leaves a lot open to interpretation..."

"You can interpret it any way you want, so long as I get laid," Ban replied after emptying the tissue box. "Get naked and we'll talk health shop later. By the way, you're on kleenex detail. I need a fresh batch."

Akabane sighed and conceded defeat as he came back to the bed, shaking his head in dismay. "Ban-kun, the wastebasket is not that difficult of a target to miss..."

XX

"You're sure you'll be all right," Ban said, eyeing the pale-faced vision of infirmity who was struggling to knot his tie and hang on to the wad of kleenex in his grasp at the same time.

Akabane sniffled, but managed a thin smile. "I'm sure. We shouldn't be out late anyway; it's a local run. Maguruma will have us back before you know it." He abruptly dropped the ends of his tie and grabbed the tissues, muffling a sneeze in them. "It's just bad timing that I came down with your cold right when I'm supposed to go out…"

"Excuse me?" Ban scowled. "Since when is it my cold when everybody from the Honky Tonk has been dropping like flies over the past week and a half? You could've caught it from any of them. Matter of fact, I bet you did. Have you seen some of Paul's dishes lately? Monkey-nitwit probably has his simian servants licking 'em clean!"

"That's not true," Akabane said, drawing another tissue from his handful. "You know perfectly well – " he sneezed into the kleenex – "that Natsumi-san and Rena-san keep that place spotless. Blaming Wan-san's sanitary practices unfairly isn't very professional."

"He can afford to hire a maid, with the bills he's been charging us."

"Bills that you don't pay anyhow," Akabane said with a distinctly nasal inflection. He closed his eyes and rubbed at his temples. "Ahh. I'll be glad when this thing runs its course."

Ban frowned. "Kuroudo, why don't you just bag the night. Seriously. You look like you're two steps away from sporting a J yourself. Stay home and I'll spoil you, huh?"

Akabane reopened his eyes and smiled weakly. "That's a very kind offer, Ban-kun, but we've been planning this job for weeks. I hardly ever get a chance to fight the Komodo brothers."

"There's still some left?" Ban snorted. "Come on, the hedonist in you can't say no to a night of back rubs and pizza."

Akabane coughed out a chuckle. "I'll be fine, Ban-kun. I know what I'm doing."

His fellow transporters didn't think so, however. When Mr. No-Brakes and Lady Poison showed up to collect Doctor Jackal, they took one look at him and concurred with Ban. "Akabane, you look like crap," Himiko said in her diplomatic manner. "Why aren't you in bed?"

"I told him not to go, but he insists on his bloody playtime," Ban answered from his recliner.

A sneeze from the patient in question preempted whatever anyone else had been about to say. They all looked at him and Akabane looked up from his handkerchief and smiled blearily.

"Isn't it nice, Himiko-san? Thousands of years of advancement in medicine, and they still can't find a cure for the common cold."

"You should stay home then if you're sick," Maguruma told him.

Akabane chuckled hoarsely, his silken voice turned somewhat guttural by his cold. "And miss all the fun?"

"Some things never change," Maguruma said with a shrug. "Fair warning, Jackal. If I come down with your plague, you're walking it the next job."

"I will try to keep the spread of illness to a minimum," Akabane said, and sneezed again into his handkerchief. "In all honesty though, Gouzou, if you were going to come down with what I've got, you would have by now. The virus has a certain incubation period where it's most contagious, even without visible symptoms."

"I'll remember that when I bring it home to my family and my wife lets me have it for infecting the whole household," Maguruma replied wryly. "Coming out in this weather can't be doing you any good. You won't be on top of your game like you normally are."

"Don't remind me," Akabane grumbled, his smile slipping.

Ban and Himiko looked at each other. It was a strange time indeed when they could talk about 'normal' and have it mean that Doctor Jackal wasn't meeting his usual quota of kills. Secretly, they were both grateful – Ban because this fit in with his plans, and Himiko because unlike her black-suited cohort, she took no pleasure in depriving others, however wretched their character, of their lives.

"At least take this with you." Ban got up and shoved a bottle of green liquid into Akabane's coat pocket. "Swig some of that every couple of hours, it'll help take the worst of the edge off."

Akabane accepted it with a nod. "Thank you, Ban-kun."

"And don't say I didn't warn you." Ban nodded at the other transporters. "Happy trails, kids. I've got my cell on in case you have to ring me."

No such call as he was expecting did come, however, so Ban spent the evening playing cards with Ginji and tacking up extra recovery flyers. As the hour grew later, he returned home to pass the time with a mystery novel that Maria had loaned him, kicking off his boots so that the cats could curl up on his feet. Finally a knock on the door interrupted his reading.

Ban shut his book and leaned back against the couch. "It's open," he called out, and wasn't surprised in the least when a trio of transporters – one of whom lolled unconscious in Maguruma's arms – entered his dwelling.

"Where do you want this?" the big man asked calmly, indicating his baggage.

"Bedroom. Do I get to say it, or would you like the honor of that pleasure?" Ban drawled as Maguruma promptly carried Akabane into the bedroom and unceremoniously dumped him onto the mattress.

"I think there's plenty to share. Right, Himiko?"

She nodded, tossing the big black hat she held onto a chair. "Biggest 'I-told-you-so' to come his way in ages."

Ban grumbled as they gathered around the bed. "Stupid Jackal," he grunted, beginning to remove his mate's clothing. "Dammit, and he's running a fever too. I guess it's really true what they say, doctors are their own worst patients."

"You don't know the half of it," Maguruma told him, somewhat sympathetically. "Akabane almost never catches anything when there's a bug going around, but if he gets hit he goes down hard. If I were you I'd run down to the liquor store and pick up a bottle of the best one-ninety-proof you can find while he's still out. Your life's going to be pretty unpleasant for a while." He nodded to both Ban and Himiko. "See you around."

"Later, Maguruma," Himiko said.

Ban frowned after the other man left. He looked to Himiko. "He's just messing with me, right? I mean, Akabane's not that hard to handle when he's sick…is he?"

She shrugged. "You tell me. You're the one shacked up with him. I've never witnessed it myself so I couldn't say, but Maguruma's not the exaggerating type, I can assure you."

"Just what I wanted to hear," Ban muttered. "What'd he do, puke up one too many scalpels?"

"Worse," Himiko said. "We were in the middle of a fight, and this extra guy jumped us. The Komodos figure they don't have too many lives left so they hired some muscle from another gang. Akabane went to charge him and fell stone cold in mid-attack. It actually helped us, because the Komodos were too surprised to do anything but stare, so we were able to grab our item and get out of there before the fight got really bad."

"Oh man." Ban pinched the bridge of his nose. "Don't tell him that, he'll never live it down." He fished through the coat pockets and found the nearly-emptied bottle of medicine. "Holy shit. He drank all that? No wonder he passed out. This stuff would clobber a rhino."

"He kept complaining that he needed extra tissues for his nose," Himiko nodded. "I offered him some of my sleep perfume so he could rest during the drive, but he got cranky and said he was strong enough to stay alert. He can be temperamental even on the best of transports, Ban, but tonight he was a royal pain."

"You would be too if your brains kept dripping out your nose," Ban said without rancor. "You're right though, it's his own fault for not listening to us. Guess I'd better raid the emergency rations and hit the pharmacy before he wakes up."

"And the liquor store," Himiko reminded him. "I'd take Maguruma's advice if I were you. And declaw Akabane while you still have the chance."

They studied the unconscious transporter, whose black hair fanned out across the mattress like a storm cloud. With his fine features composed into perfect relaxation, Akabane looked deceptively innocent – only the two people watching him knew what kind of a ferocity that serene exterior concealed. "Good point," Ban muttered, and then winced at his unintentional pun. "Mind loaning me one of those sleep vials? It'll make dosing him easier."

Himiko unbelted her waist harness and handed the entire set to him. "Might as well use what you need. There's sleep, oblivion, flame, and paralysis, among others. Get him to inhale the perfumes orally if you can, since he's probably too congested for them to affect his nasal passages."

Ban took the perfume harness with a raised brow. "I take back almost every bad thing I ever said about you, little sis."

XX

TBC