It was easy enough for Cole to catch up with Janice

It was easy enough for Cole to catch up with Janice. She wasn't running, or trying to move quietly. Not that it would have really mattered, but it made things easier for him to get to her. She finally stopped a few hundred yards away and sat down on a rock, her face in her hands, not moving when he approached her. He couldn't help but be rather impressed by her. It was pretty rare that a norm tangled with a sixer and walked away the winner. Actually, outside of Manticore guards when they were kids, he couldn't think of a single other incident.

"I'm sorry," Janice heard Cole say. She looked up at him sharply, her anger still obvious. He had given in to letting her handle Kevin way too easily. She stood up, hoping she was looking menacing, and not as pathetic as she felt. His expression didn't change either way. He did look a little contrite. No matter. She wanted the truth.

"You knew Brickman was here," she said flatly. "You didn't have to worry about Kevin because Brickman was right there behind him the whole time."

"Actually, neither of us knew the other was around," Cole replied. A touch of a smile curved up the corner of his mouth. "It happens more than you might think. I was in too much of a hurry to get here to contact anyone, and I'm not always told when there's someone after one of us." He knew what was bothering Janice. Hell, the other way around, and he would have believed the same thing.

"I'm not going to say I'm not relieved he's dead," Cole said quite honestly. "But for your sake, I am sorry you didn't get to him first."

She didn't say anything for a long moment. He could be lying. She could lie like a rug when she wanted to, and his training was far superior to hers, but she couldn't help but feel as though he was telling the truth. She didn't want to be angry with Cole really. None of this was his fault. If it had been Cyra out there, she would have been just as relieved that the person after her was eliminated. Janice hadn't thought about Cyra's stepfather's feelings when his brother wouldn't stop making moves on Cyra. Her niece needed to be protected, therefore Janice did what was needed and Rick had decided that California seemed to have better prospects once he got out of the hospital.

Without really meaning to, Cole found himself extending his hand out to her. Those few moments in her mind had let him know so much about her it was scary. It was possible for someone to instinctively still block off parts of the mind, but she had been completely open to him. He knew how much Kevin had meant to her. He knew this was killing her. He had seen how incredibly lonely she was, and knew without a doubt that right then she needed a friend. His hand closed on her wrist, holding it firmly for a second, and then she stepped into the circle of his arms.

Cole was not used to being physically close to people outside of his family. He'd heard a couple of women describe him as "that cold-ass son-of-a-bitch" and he had to admit that with those two in particular that were talking, that was exactly how he'd been, especially after he'd slept with them. Not that he'd acted before they'd slept with him like there was going to be anything more afterwards; they had known full well he was not, nor had ever been a warm person. Offering comfort to a person he didn't even know twenty-four hours before was not something he did, and he was more than a little surprised at himself for doing it.

Janice felt a few hot tears trickle down her face as her cheek pressed against Cole's shoulder. She had thought she wanted to be alone, but she'd been alone far too much in the last months. Maybe it was just because of the trauma of the last day, maybe it was something else, but of anyone who could have been there, she was glad it was Cole. He seemed to silently understand what she was going through, and wasn't trying to make her talk or any of that stereotypical psychological crap that you were supposed to do to someone who was upset.

"He wasn't like this," she whispered. "Kevin would never…not when we were all together…this wasn't Kevin at all."

Cole's finger touched her chin lightly, tilting her head back. Their eyes met evenly. "He made the choice to let the death of someone he loved change him," he said softly. "He let the person you knew get torn apart. You wouldn't have stopped it. He was the only one that could." There was something in his eyes and voice that said he knew exactly what it was like to have to make that choice.

It made a strange sort of sense to Janice. She'd seen people use tragedy to become stronger. The Kevin she had talked to today was not the man she'd known before. He was so much less than before. It didn't mean it hurt any less, but it helped keep things just a little more in perspective. "Thank you," she whispered so quietly it was almost mouthed.

She expected him to let her go after that, but he didn't move an inch, and there was no way she could command her legs to step back. She could feel her heartbeat accelerate for no discernable reason. Okay, there was that eye-contact thing that was intense enough to make her forget to breathe, but that was it. The moment wasn't getting less intense. Her eyes drifted shut, waiting for the touch of his lips against hers that she knew was coming.

There was a noise, and reality restarted itself. Cole stepped back quickly, putting space in between them as Xander came into view. Cole knew full well that Xander had intentionally made noise getting there so he would interrupt…well there wasn't anything to interrupt so it didn't matter. He ignored the raised eyebrow and smirk his brother shot at him. There wasn't a damn thing to explain, and since Janice had turned her back to Xander, he wouldn't have to explain their little by-play to her either.

Xander made a quick gesture to Cole. Return to base. Cole's eyes narrowed in suspicion. He wasn't leaving Janice alone for Xander to get a little revenge on. Xander rolled his eyes. Just going to talk to her, he mouthed, holding his hands out, palms up. Cole's look of warning before he turned to leave was enough to let Xander know that he better keep his word. Xander looked at him then back at her. It had to be Cole's twisted sort of revenge for that little practical joke Xander had pulled, posting certain measurements of Cole's on one of those pitiful "looking for a date" websites. At least Shawna and Cray had thought it was funny.

Xander cleared his throat. If he could change anything, it would have been that whole fiasco with Riespian. They all knew he got what he deserved, and privately, Xander thought the monster had gotten off rather easily. But if it had been Shawna that had been attacked, Xander knew without a doubt he would have done all Nightshade had done and more.

"Nightshade," he began, only to have her spin around quickly, her eyes blazing.

"Don't you dare call me that!" she snarled. "Nightshade is dead. End of story. If you can't figure out what to call me from there, then get the hell away from me."

Xander had a few things he would like to call her, but none of those names would be productive at this point. There wasn't a need to not say what he had been planning, and what had really happened. He would deny anything that was said later. "Riespian was marked," he blurted angrily. That got her attention. She turned slowly to face him.

"He was marked, and I got nailed for taking it?" she said incredulously. It had happened before that someone had taken someone down without authorization, but all was forgiven if they were previously marked.

"It wasn't exactly official," Xander replied. "As a matter of fact, officially the punishment was going to be against his sister." He paused, and then finally said what he had thought he would never say aloud in his life. "I had planned on asking a favor from my…from an X-6 that I knew personally. They're pretty trustworthy when it comes to covering tracks and not getting caught. Nobody would have suspected anything, but all of a sudden there was a buyer wanting a Manticore biosynth, and there was no way I was putting one of them out in the open with communications cut off. Not for anything. I had to choose between revenge and protecting them, and I chose the living over the dead."

"Why didn't you ever say any of this?" she asked. "We've been trusted with darker secrets than that."

Xander shrugged. "Manticore is a mostly forgotten project. Those who remain, they don't need to have their lives torn up by people making them into science project assassins again. I know where they are, and I know who they've become, and the last thing any of them needs is someone trying to reactivate what they used to be to satisfy a grudge. A personal favor is one thing, but the moment they were brought back into the spotlight, and certain people get reminded about them, it all starts over again."

Janice thought for a moment about Kevin. And herself. Had she known what was available, the tools that could have been used, yes, she would have pushed for it. It wouldn't have mattered to her that they might be happier away from that life. If any of them had wanted to be part of that life still, they would be in the CIA or maybe NSA, and she didn't know of a single person in either of those two agencies that had ever been seen doing what an X series could do.

"You didn't have to kill him," she said finally. He had an X-6 with him, and an X-7 right there. There was no way Kevin could have stood against the two of them, especially after seeing Heather dangling two people over a cliff. That kid could have pinned him by herself.

"If we hadn't, then what?" came the question. Janice sat down heavily on the rock again, her arms folded, staring off into her own thoughts as scenarios played out in her mind. Capture, yes. Then what? Prison? No, he knew too much, and even so, was there a prison designed that could hold him? Let him go? No, he was obsessed with getting a Manticore biosynth for the buyer, and there was no way he was going to ease up on what he saw as his way out.

She felt a hand on her shoulder. "He could live as a traitor and an outcast," Xander said. "Or he could be a dead hero."

Janice looked up at him, comprehension dawning. "There's not a single person here who wants the truth to come out," she said softly. Devon, she thought. A father that was a traitor could embarrass him forever, or he could respect a man who died trying to save a young girl from kidnappers.

Xander smiled just a bit, once again wishing things could be different. If there was any way to bring her back…but there wasn't a way that he could see. "Truth is what we say it is, right?"

Janice smiled back. "And we say it's a darn good thing there was a law enforcement officer tracking the kidnappers and got Heather away from them."

"And saved a humble gym teacher that got caught up in the mess," he added. She nodded, not having to say that the rest of them were simply going to back out of the picture. Nobody would ever know about Cole and Brickman and Shawna, and she had no doubt that it would seem Alicia and Zack had been at the lodge the whole time.

Xander held out his hand, hoping she wouldn't bite it or something. She took it firmly, accepting his help standing. Whatever had been had been. Teaching gym for the next thirty years was a dismal prospect, but maybe something later would come along. It wasn't ever going to be what was, but it was going to have to do. Without another word needed, they walked back to the others.