TW for mentions of Non-con. Nothing graphic, but it is there.

No one slept in the next morning. By seven am the entire house was up and dressed and assembled for breakfast.

Jeff eyed his eldest son carefully. Something was clearly wrong there and it wasn't just the lack of sleep. Scott was fidgety, something that, as a rule, he'd grown out of by the age of ten. But, as Jeff watched, Scott twisted the table cloth between two fingers and stared blankly out of the small window.

Both Virgil and Gordon were also unusually quiet but that, at least, was to be expected. There was a heavy atmosphere to the room, one which Jeff hoped to expel shortly. It hadn't been an easy night for him. He'd been unable to find a comfortable position to sleep in in the bed which was far too soft and this meant that, even after staying up till long past the time the piano music had faded, he was still unable to get more than a few snatches of sleep. The time had been spent well, though and he felt confident in his course of action and the instruction he had issued to Kyrano earlier this morning.

Jeff smiled slightly as he thought of the last piece he'd heard through the walls of the manor. Virgil had clearly found some kind of solace in his music, judging by that last song and he had headed to bed soon after, if the silence were to be believed. Jeff had wanted to go and check but a reminder that his son was an adult, and one not in the best of moods with his father, had kept him where he was – in a bed that was too soft with too many thoughts in his head.

The dining room door clicked open than and Kyrano ushered Oracle into the room offering her a seat at the table. It didn't escape Jeff's notice that she'd been placed as far from Virgil as possible in the limited company. If it occurred to her then she didn't show it.

"Good morning, Oracle" Jeff said. "I thought you might like to join us for breakfast." The heads of his three boys swivelled towards him simultaneously, each bearing the same expression of confusion and, in one case, open suspicion.

Jeff sighed internally. He'd built a lot of barriers these past few months and, even though a large part of him was screaming not to, he knew he had to try tearing some of them down.

"Sure" she said sounding uncertain but accepting the chair none the less. "I don't need to eat today though."

The startled "What?" from Scott came at the same time as a weary "Jasmine" from Virgil who poured her a glass of water and handed it to Gordon to pass on to her. "You don't have to earn food here" he said indicating the stack of toast in the centre of the table.

"Sorry" she said looking abashed. One hand drifted upwards in what Jeff was sure was an unconscious move towards the collar before the redirected it and tentatively took a slice of toast.

"Tea?" Kyrano asked, appearing at her shoulder with a steaming pot. It was a move Jeff knew well and a sign of the sense of humour the boys believed the manservant didn't have. But Jeff knew he liked to make them jump just to see them try and style it out. Oracle, however, didn't so much as twitch.

"No, thank you" she said.

"Coffee?"

"Also no, but thank you for offering."

She could pass for one of Hugh's daughter's peers with manners like that Jeff observed. He kept an eye on her as he busied himself with his own breakfast.

Oracle wasn't focused on Jeff, however. The manservant was flitting about the kitchen doing busy work which kept him by a door at all times. He also had a hand near a potential weapon at all times, though the items were innocuous enough; a bread knife, a kettle of boiling water, a saucepan. It reaffirmed her belief that Kyrano was a lot more than Master Tracy's personal help. Virgil, bless him, kept stealing what he probably thought were surreptitious glances her way. It made him look a little like a school boy and she reminded herself that it wasn't endearing. Not at all. Gordon was doing the best at looking comfortable but there was a tension to him. He also had wet hair like he'd just got out of the shower which no one seemed bothered about.

Scott was the odd one out at the table. Compared to the confident All American she'd met yesterday – before everything had gone to hell – it was like looking at another person. He clearly hadn't slept but also was clearly used to handling that. There was a half-eaten croissant in front of him and a coffee mug just dirty enough to show it had been refilled a fair few times. Oracle buttered her toast and watched him from the corner of her eye.

The radio chattered on unnoticed but most in the room.

"…following the successful coup. We will shortly be hearing the first official address from Colonel Hakimi, hang on, yes, we have him now."

A gravelly, heavily accented voice followed spewing a pre-rehearsed speech about freedom for oppressed people. The speech was wholly uninteresting to Oracle having heard it or a version of it from client a hundred times before. Scott, however, was very interesting. He metaphorically left the room, anything behind the eyes vanishing to be replaced by a mask so perfect in its reflection of his normal persona that Oracle was sure she would have missed it had she not been looking.

The speech wound down and the original reported came back on.

"That was new leader Colonel Hakimi giving his first address to the free people of Bereznik. We will of course bring you-"

The radio cut off sharply, Kyrano having turned it off before addressing Jeff as though it were the most normal thing in the world. Oracle had seen though. Something about Bereznik had clearly upset Thunderbird One – for she was sure that was his role – and she had a damn good idea what it was.

"I shall be in the gardens if you require me, Mr Tracy" Kyrano said before exiting. Though if he'd gone more than a few feet away Oracle would eat her boot.

"Oracle, I want to apologise to you about yesterday" Jeff said ignoring the incredulous looks he was getting from two of his sons. The third did a good impression but had yet to make it back into the room. "I spent last night going over every interaction my boys have had with you over the past year. I wanted to get a picture of you, without the preconceptions that I bought into the conversation yesterday." Oracle very carefully didn't move and kept her face neutral, because there was just no way that this wasn't a trap of some kind. "I soon realised that, until the biomechanoid word was mentioned, I had found your wiliness to help us most unusual, especially given the high level of risk to yourself. Despite that I, at one stage, was writing contingency plans to ensure your safety in the way that I would for any member of my team. I then threw all that aside once I suspected what you were."

He looked at her pointedly trying to gauge her reaction but she didn't give him one.

"Hypothetically" Jeff said "if you were working to infiltrate International Rescue, how would you do it?"

Oracle blinked. She'd never considered it. When she'd initially heard about the threat, she'd actually put shamefully little thought into the end game, as it were. Honestly, she hadn't expected to meet any of them in person. The relationship she had with Thunderbird Five, if you could even call it that, was as far as she'd thought things through.

She worked the problem quickly, aware that she was testing the master's patience with her delay. The problem was, she couldn't come up with anything. She would have needed to know one of their identities first to approach them in the usual way and setting herself up as a potential victim wouldn't work long term as she highly doubted the IR members thought of their rescuee's as anything other than work.

"Why are you hesitating?" Jeff asked calm as anything and Oracle felt her blood run cold. The calm commanders were always the worst at accepting failure.

"I haven't come up with a workable plan yet, Master" she apologised.

"I see" he said in that same tone. "What about the ones you have dismissed?"

She ran him through her thoughts watching for the inevitable explosion at her ineptitude. She could feel the tension creeping through her shoulders and forced them to relax, forced her breathing back into a usual pattern. Punishment was coming, she knew it but she had no idea what it would be. An image flashed through her mind of the master activating the collar, causing her to scream and writhe on the floor whilst the others watched on dispassionately – whilst Virgil watched on – and she tried to blink it away without being obvious. She could handle it; it wouldn't be the first time it had happened.

It would be the first time it happened in front of someone you care about her treacherous mind supplied.

Jeff nodded thoughtfully.

"If you wanted to get out of this room and we tried to stop you, what would you do?" he asked instead.

In her fingers the butter knife twirled into the ready position and her feet shifted slightly to brace for a rapid rise.

"Take a hostage" she answered instantly relieved at so simple a scenario. "It's the only way I could leave without you triggering the collar."

"I could trigger it anyway" Jeff said.

"These are your sons" she returned, "you wouldn't take the risk. Others might" she clarified, "you wouldn't."

"That's what I thought" Jeff said, a look that Oracle couldn't decipher crossing his features. When the collar at her neck clicked open, she jumped before tossing it away like a poisonous snake.

"Dad?" Gordon asked.

"I'm sorry" was all Jeff said and from the collective intake of breath around the table Oracle knew it wasn't a phrase the man uttered often. "I should never have let my own fears guide my actions the way I have. After breakfast I will personally drive you back into London and I swear to you that the GDF will hear nothing of you from International Rescue."

"What about the mission?" she asked completely wrong footed. No punishment for her clear failure and now she was being let go? No. Not a chance. This was obviously a set up for something and damn it she had no idea what it was. She couldn't prepare. Her heart began to race at the thought that she just didn't understand what was going on around her. She desperately wanted to risk a glance at Virgil, knowing his reaction would give her some clue, but she couldn't risk it.

"We have no right to ask anything of you given the circumstances" Jeff said, his tone suggesting that his decision was final.

"You didn't ask, I volunteered" Oracle said flatly caving in to her desire for some kind of reassurance and darting a look across the table. Virgil hid a smirk behind his coffee cup that spurred her on. "You'd risk the safety of one of your boys because you made a mistake? Or do you have someone else on the inside?" That right, keep him focused on the original mission and divert from whatever the hell is going on here.

"We have enough information to put a stop to this here and now. The DGF will move based on what we have collected so far."

"You mean what I've collected so far" she said, shocking herself with a brazenness she wouldn't have even considered before the collar came off. "I wouldn't put all your money on the GDF, they've done a bang-up job with me."

Across the table Virgil jumped as Gordon kicked him in the shin. The grin he'd been forming quickly vanished and he scowled at Gordon before catching Scott's eye.

"She's got a point, dad" Scott said, playing spokesperson for them all. "We don't have any real operational details for their ambush and, without that, the DGF would have no way of knowing when to mobilise."

"I need to go back in" Oracle said.

"You'd be like a lamb in a slaughterhouse if they suspected you" Gordon said.

"I'm no one's damn lamb" she replied fiercely. "I'm a wolf in sheep's clothing born and trained and" she said after a beat "I was raised in a slaughterhouse so, that's not exactly new territory either."

The comment sobered the room but, rather than try and press her point Oracle let it stand. She knew what was on the line and so did they and it sure as hell wasn't her.

Maybe, just maybe, he means it she thought before ruthlessly squashing the idea. Thoughts like that could get her killed. Or worse.

"If you do this, we want a way of monitoring you at all times" Jeff said.

"What, you haven't been so far? Thunderbird Five not enough?" she said pointedly. Jeff raised an eyebrow at the tone and Oracle made a mental note to turn it down a bit. She was overcompensating. "Sorry."

"I get the feeling that social interaction wasn't something you were taught as a child" Jeff said.

"Not really my area, no" she admitted. "My job was to follow orders mainly. I only gave them in the arena."

Jeff's eyes narrowed slightly at that as he caught the scent of something he'd been wanting to broach but, until now, hadn't seen a way to do so.

"Oracle" he asked carefully. "What was your role at the facility?"

"My role?"

"Yes, you mentioned that the others would fall in line if you did."

Ah. Here was where things got a little tricky. Oracle knew she had to tread carefully, that the truth, stated bluntly, didn't put her in a good light at all – though of course a lie would make things worse. Silently she cursed herself for the slip.

"Showroom model" she said as though that explained everything. She knew it didn't but she needed time to frame what it was that she'd been. Her role in the whole horrid affair. "I am defective" she said slowly. "The vulnerability to electricity combined with the CIPs means I'm a liability in the field, so, I never went. My job was 'sell' the biomechanoid product to, uh, well, anyone they said, really."

"And how would you do that?" Jeff asked unconsciously leaning forward and resting his elbows on the table.

"Arena work, mostly" she replied self-consciously rubbing at the scars on her left arm. "Sometimes, it was this" she gestured round the table desperate to leave the subject of the arenas and what happened there behind her. "I'd sit in a nice dress and smile and eat with the correct fork and later the masters would have our guests try and spot the freak at the table. They pretty much never did" she couldn't help but add with a wry smirk.

"How many biomechanoids did you help sell?" Jeff asked.

"Hundreds, thousands, probably more" she said honestly but then hurried to add "But they only ever made three successfully so…" she trailed off the sinking feeling returning to her stomach. Everyone round the table looked horrified and, in Virgil's case, physically ill. What had she thought? That she could tell them and they would say it didn't matter? Of course it mattered. She'd helped in the sale of hundreds of people, aided in the training of those to be converted. She only thing she hadn't done was terminate those who had failed conversion but, honestly, what difference did that make?

"Only three?" Virgil said carefully. "You, Warren and?"

"What?" she rounded on him horrified. "Warren isn't a biomech and he is not a part of what is going on here."

"Easy" Scott said as though trying to calm a wild animal. He slowly reached an arm towards her and it was only then Oracle realised she was standing, her chair knocked over behind her. "It's alright, we're just trying to understand."

"He did rather forcefully remove that boy from the café" Virgil said. "And when he returned from talking to Nick, he had blood on him. You can see why I thought-"

"Warren is not a part of this. He finally has a chance to get a life out here and I won't have that taken from him. He's been through enough" she said sitting back in the chair that Gordon had righted for her. She ran a hand through her hair, surprised by the trembling that was there and forced it to stop. She needed someone to say something. Break the tension in the room. Change the topic, anything. But no one did.

"There's three types of people in the facility" she started, resigned to explaining what she'd dearly hoped to avoid. "The biomechaoids, obviously. Then there's the new arrivals. When the kids arrive, they're split into two categories. The first begin as fodder which is essentially training aids for those selected for conversion. If they show anything they then get selected and if they make it as far as conversion it usually kills them. Like I said, my facility only turned out three successes." She looked round the table flatly, choosing an emotionless debrief rather than to relive her final day there. "The other two are dead, by the way. I saw Roman get gunned down and Bandit should have never made it through conversion anyway, he was fairly useless. There's no way he survived. I didn't try and help them. I didn't try and help anyone; I just wanted to find Warren and get out." She was getting off topic and the memories of that final day were rattling their bars. She saw Virgil shift, his instinct to protect making him want to go to her. She also saw the look from Master Tracy that held him in place.

"Warren wasn't in that category though, was he?" the master asked and, even though she didn't want to, even though the new part of her that she tentatively labelled Jasmine was screaming at her not to, she still couldn't defy an order from her master.

"No" she admitted. "Warren was…" she had to say it. She didn't want to, it felt like a huge betrayal. Also, even though she'd the evidence with her own eyes, she liked to pretend it wasn't true. She liked to think that what she had bargained had made a difference and pretend that her deal had stopped what was happening. "Warren was available by the hour" she said purposefully looking only at the table so she couldn't see the reaction of the men around her. "Warren was a really pretty kid, especially for a boy" she said softly. "He had this red hair and alabaster skin and he was so slim he looked almost elfin. I know he doesn't look like that now" she said meaning it for Virgil but unable to look at him just yet. "It took some serious training and quite a lot of hair dye before he could look at himself again but we got there." Now she did look up, skewering Mater Tracy with her best glare. "You see why I can't let you screw up any chance he has at a life."

"Warren doesn't have anything to worry about from us" Master Tracy said and Oracle couldn't help but cock her head slightly at his voice. He sounded… strangled? Like he'd lost someone himself, almost. "For anyone to survive what he has, what you both have – International Rescue does not take sides. We do not make decisions based on what people have done."

"We save everybody" Gordon said fiercely.

Oracle took in the faces of those around her. They each looked grimly determined. They each looked as though they'd taken a punch to the gut and they each looked as though they had a lot to process. Jeff confirmed as much saying;

"I think we could all do with some time. Oracle, I meant what I said about driving you back to London tomorrow. Until then, you're free to do as you please."

"Anything I want?" she said disbelieving.

"Yes."

"Then I think I'm going to go take a shower" she said rising slowly in a bid not to show just how desperately she wanted out of that room.

"You didn't already?" Gordon said surprised.

"I wasn't aware I was allowed" she answered trying to ignore the wince from both Virgil and, interestingly, Scott. "I'll see everyone later" she said moving easily towards the door. At least she hoped it looked easy.

"Kyrano will collect you for lunch" Mater Tracy said as she left. She acknowledged him briefly before making a retreat to her room.

Quickly she shut the door and fled to the bathroom, sinking down onto the tiling by the bath and finally giving in to the uncontrollable shaking she'd been suppressing since the collar came off. She was aware that her breath was coming in shorter and shorter gasps, felt the wetness on her face as tears streamed. It was too much. She'd traded in the freedom she had for more captivity only to have freedom thrust upon her again.

Which was real? How was she supposed to know? She'd fallen back onto the mantra she'd set up for Warren as he'd struggled so desperately to accept that he was more then just a toy for other people.

'Fake it till you make it' she'd told him.

'But I don't know what to do, Oracle' Warren had wept. 'I can see what they want but I don't want to give it to them.'

'You don't have to. Not anymore not ever again.'

'How do I know? If someone wants to talk to me, I can't just walk away. I'd get into so much trouble.'

'Not now. Not ever again. Warren, you plaster on a smile, say something polite and move on. That's all. You don't do anything you don't want to and if you don't know what to say just leave. Fake it, till you make it. Fake being a normal person, just like I do every day.'

'Just like you do' he replied his tears finally stopping. 'Fake it till we make it.'

So that's what she'd done. Faked being Jasmine when Oracle was screaming at her to obey. It worked, didn't it? And if she'd done it then, she could do it again and maybe, if she was lucky, she could fake her way into believing Jasmine was real again.

She could do this. She could. She'd be okay. She just needed a minute.

Just a minute.