"Please let me do something?"

"No," responded Ellen, pretending to be an indignant child as she snatched the laundry basket away from Hannah and went to the living room to fold the clothes by herself. Hannah sighed. She had been idle nearly all morning long and she was going crazy. She should be going up the mountain to her cabin, but she didn't want to leave without helping in some way, to say thank you. John had suggested helping Ellen with the laundry, but Ellen was….

"You are our guest. Sit down and relax, make John get you some hot cocoa."

Hannah wrang her hands together. She had tied her sweater around her waist, the house was too hot to wear two layers and the heating mesh. So she had her windbreaker on, unzipped to her collarbone, and that was it. She was not going to add a hot drink to her already perspiring body.

Regardless, she did return to the kitchen, sitting down in one of the chairs and running a hand through her hair, breathing out another heavy sigh.

"You're hot?" John asked as he turned from the coffee machine and sat down at the table with her.

"Yeah," Hannah answered, sounding distant.

"Think you might be coming down with something?"

"No. I'm used to this weather, in a cabin with nothing heating it up but a couple of fires. Not a house that has its thermostat set to seventy and a fire roaring in the living room."

John made a noise in his throat, like understanding but also amusement, and took a drink of coffee, "is that why you didn't sleep well?"

Damn that observant man. He definitely got it from his mother. Hannah ran her fingers under her eyes, sure that there were bags there that had given her away, "I am however used to softer beds."

John chuckled, "sorry. Mom won't let you help?"

"No."

John hummed and his eyes moved, to the side, looking at the wall as he took another sip, "well, you can probably go out and get started on the fence for my dad. He's not here to protest and I'm sure he'd be very grateful for the help."

Hannah dropped her hand to the table and thought about standing out in the cold, re-wrapping wire, knee-deep in snow. But John had a point; Mike wasn't there to say no, and if she was quiet, Ellen wouldn't notice.

"Sounds like a plan," she said quietly, earning a smile from the man.

"He probably keeps the tools in the garage," John said quietly as well. God, it was like they were children planning to sneak out of the house. The two of them rose and went to the garage. Sure enough there was a roll or wire, albeit small, and the fencing pliers she would need. It gave her a goal. When the fencing wire ran out, she'd call it good and go back up the mountain to the alien.

John put on a parka and walked with her outside, setting his coffee on the table before heading out the backdoor. Luckily he seemed to not notice that Hannah was still without a sweater and just in the windbreaker. The fences there were definitely in need of work, some posts were leaning so far over that the snow had buries them, and only the wire leading into and out of the drifts said that they were still there.

"Wow."

"Yeah, dad kind of let this place go after he sold the last horse," John undid the wire and she took the end, clipping off the old wire and began to work.

"I'm not an expert at this," she said begrudgingly.

"I'm sure whatever you'll do is fine."

A sort of silence fell between them, though it wasn't entirely quiet. The metallic noise of the wire unwinding and the click of the pliers added to a symphony of animal calls. The sky was grey, threatening more snow if she didn't hurry up.

"How big was it?"

Hannah blinked and looked at John.

"The meteor that crashed behind your house."

Hannah set her jaw and tried to put the terms into a half-truth, "pretty big actually. I'd need a crane to lift the thing. I thought it was best to leave it alone. Not worth it."

"I wonder why Weyland wants it," John ran a hand through his hair and stamped his feet. He was starting to get cold.

"Don't know, maybe there's some kind of space metal they want to get a hold of."

"Like vibranium?"

Hannah gave him a cocked-eye glance and he had a familiar smile on his face.

"Nerd," she scoffed and went back to work. John laughed.

"Well, being a nerd made me rich," he said, stamping his foot again, "but if they're as desperate to get to it as you said, it must be worth something, hopefully they're not willing to kill over it."

Hannah paused in her work and stared blankly at the wooden rail-tie. John fell silent and his smile faded.

"Hannah," he said seriously and she looked over at him. His face was very somber, almost angry, "have they hurt you?"

Hannah's gaze moved up and down the man, and she inhaled slightly, "when I said they were willing to do anything to get it, I meant it."

"Oh God Hannah! Did you tell anyone!?"

"No-."

"Why not!?"

"Think about it John, Weyland's got a multi-billion dollar empire worth more than any law or judge. Who's going to believe some woman that says 'they shot me-.'"

"They shot you!?"

"-Testifying against that. One pesky little girl is sitting between him and a- a rock that he really wants to get alone on a mountain, and he's got enough money to make her disappear. Who would notice if she's gone, who would care?"

"We would!" John said suddenly, his hands going from pulling at his short hair to being thrown towards the ground, "we would notice!" he grabbed her, and her initial reflex was to use the pliers as a weapon to get away from him, but he pulled her into him and held her tight. She sat still, wide-eyed and her fingers slowly relaxed on the pliers.

"Dammit Hannah, how many time do we need to tell you that you don't need to face this kind of shit alone?" he growled into her hair. The pliers dropped from her hand into the snow and her hands moved to John's body, but not to return the embrace. Her hands fell to his sides, ready to push him away. She thought of a million answers to why she never tried being a part of his family, regardless of their insistence. She tried to find the one that would be least offensive, one that had more to do with her own issues than her distrust of humanity as a whole. And then John whispered:

"I should have kissed you."

Hannah blinked, confused, and pushed him away gently, putting space between the two of them, and she gave him an incredulous look. The corner of his mouth twitched like it was trying to be a smile, "that day, three years ago, I was up here for my birthday, you just happened to be at the store when I came to pick up my dad. The look you gave me, like you didn't recognize me, but you did, I wanted to… because I knew that you weren't looking at that 'nerd' anymore."

Yes, she remembered. John, the first time they met, the young geeky-looking guy who was eleven years old when she was legally allowed to live on her own. Willfully helping Mike around the shop but eager to get out to the world beyond this small little town in Montana. She remembered her callous remark that his dream was stupid, that there was nothing in that world but bitterness, lies, secrets and death. She remembered that damnable optimistic smile when he said he would just have to see it for himself. She remembered watching him grow into a man, very proud of the facial hair he was able to grow, and that hormone-driven attraction she had to him that she forced down and beat into submission. He was only human, and he would inevitable fall into their ranks, especially with his dream of owning a business.

She remembered seeing him less and less, getting older and older. But she did remember when he hit thirty, laugh lines developing at the corner of his eyes, a five-o'clock shadow and a trim goatee, and an undying fire in his eyes and how she could not help but think that he was a good looking man. 'Too young.' She convinced herself. She was in first grade when he was born. She was already living out on her own when he wasn't even out of elementary school. But she did remember, that very faint dying glimmer when she had seen the man he had become that maybe he felt something for her.

"Sorry, Hannah," John cleared his throat and stepped away from her more. The memory did not bring forth those old feelings she had for him then. She was too far gone, maybe, her dislike of humanity too far seeded to want for a normal life with a man like him.

"Maybe if I had convinced you…," she knew where his statement was going. If he had convinced her to leave with him, had convinced her to fall in love with him, she wouldn't be here, in this mess now.

"Honestly, John," she said coldly, "if you had kissed me right then. I probably would have broken your nose."

John gave her a glance, then a hallow laugh escaped his throat. They both knew it was true. He sobered up again and gave her a sharp glance. There was a hard look in his eyes that she had never seen before: ruthlessness.

"I'm going to make some calls," he said in a hard tone, "Weyland's not going to bother you again."

There it was, the business man. That human statue of the power that money could bring. The power of paper bills that could get things done, and make things disappear in such an under-handed legal way that put them above the courts, and when it didn't, they bought the judge. Hannah set her jaw tightly and looked this man in the eye, a predator in his own right, one that was not to be trifled with.

She hated this John.

He tried to offer her a smile and a court nod before he moved back towards the house. Hannah was left in the snow, staring at the closing screen door. She turned and looked at the fence, reaching down and digging in the snow until she found the pliers and tried to continue her work. She doubted that John actually had the kind of power to put Weyland down. He owned a business, yes, he invented a few devices that had earned him a couple million. It was nothing compared to what Weyland had to drop on him, and it was probably dangerous for John to try to sully anything about them.

As she worked, getting nearly to the end of the fencing wire she noticed that the animals had stopped making noise. She narrowed her eyes and looked around. Naturally she didn't see any of them. She lifted the fencing pliers and stopped, glancing towards the house. Something was wrong. Instincts told her that much. But she couldn't put her finger on it. She turned to the fence again, pausing as she looked at the post that was only a bit taller than she was and realized that the work she had done was for nothing. A pasture of elk would need a fence taller than this to keep them in. Cursing slightly she cut the wire from the spool and turned, giving another glance around.

She moved the pliers into the same hand as the spool, and slipped her hand into her pocket where her gun was, fingering the cold metal. She made her way back to the house, keeping her senses on alert. She jolted when from the house Ellen's voice called.

"Hannah?" the older woman's voice wavered and Hannah froze, finger on the trigger of the cheetah.

"Yes Ellen?" she called after a moment, trying to sound casual.

There wasn't a reply for a while, longer than it should have been.

Then…

"Hannah run!"

Mike's voice was like a gunshot. The pliers and spool dropped into the snow and she ran, her legs kicking up snow as she pushed through. Gun in her hand, safety off. She crashed through the screen door and into the house. Jar-hidda had followed her into the town, tracked her down, like following a wolf to the rest of the pack. She should have known she was putting her friends in danger!

Her boots slamming against the tile of the kitchen. Her gun was raised to eye level as she moved from the kitchen and to the living room. She froze and her eyes widened. Her gun remained level, pointed straight at the chest of a well-dressed man, the spitting image of his father.

"Hello Hannah," said Peter Weyland.