*I wanna dedicate this chapter to Maunzi and Pascha. We will miss you – but you are allowed go. And to the two dogs that are going to live a thousand years, as well as to Sherry, whose strength surprises me again and again.*

Chapter 3

The beeping in his head just wouldn't stop. Alex stared blankly at the long rows of covered bodies on the ground. The Warfield. Over and over again. Sometimes he thought he couldn't take anymore. Their lives seemed to have become a constant repetition. And, worst of all, they hadn't found Clear yet. The passenger inside the plane were shocked, but only a few of them were injured, none of them seriously. Where the hell was she? The beeping continued, but he ignored it, until Carter gave an unnerved sigh. "Shit Browning, fucking answer your phone, will ya? It's driving me crazy!"

He nearly fell over backwards as he took a look at the display. That was impossible. "Clear?" he asked, making Carter frown as well.

"Alex?" The connection wasn't very good; there were lots of hissing and other interferences, but it was definitely her voice. "See, the …. delay …. hours …. still no chance …. trying to reach you, but ….. connection …. 'kay? 'lex?"

"You're okay?" He was dumbfounded.

"Of cour …. up? …. voice …. strange."

"Don't come here. Clear, you hear me? Don't come here. There was an accident. I don't want you to – Clear? Clear?? Aw, fuck technology!!" He almost threw his cell into the garbage can beside him.

"Shouldn't you be glad right now?" Carter stared at him.

For a short moment Alex smiled. "Yeah, she wasn't on that flight", then remembered what had cut off his relief.

Carter raised an eyebrow. "Aw really?! Duh! And I thought she was calling you from the inside!"

"She mustn't come here, it's too dangerous!"

Carter followed him as he hurried toward one of the passenger terminals, which lay far away from the scene of the accident. The employee was obviously still shocked by what she had just seen, but nevertheless complied with his wish to check the data he asked her for. Inward Alex prayed that Clear hadn't already taken another flight, but his wish wasn't fulfilled, as he had to find out only seconds later. "Flight 475 will be diverted to the Stewart International Airport, which is about 55 miles away from –"

"I know where it is", he cut her off. "Is Miss Clear Rivers on that flight? She's not allowed to –"

"Sir, the machine has already started. If there's any security problem – Sir?" Alex' thoughts were racing through his mind. "Just tell me whether she will be on that flight!" he demanded, not noticing Carter looking at him, eyebrow raised, who had never seen him act in such an authoritarian manner.

"Clear Rivers?" The woman asked, typing the name into the keyboard, obviously too tensed to see the wordplay in that name combination, for there was not even a grin on her face.  Alex supposed he would have simply knocked her out if she had.

She hesitated, then shook her head. "No, no Clear Rivers, Sir."

"What?" Alex pulled the screen around to check it himself, but she was right.

"But if you give me a moment ….", the young woman continued, cautiously turning the flat screen back, and pressing some other buttons. "Yes. A Miss Clear Rivers has taken the flight to LGA, with is the Fiorello La Guardia –"

"When?"

"The machine has already landed, Sir."

"Call your colleagues over there and tell them to make sure that she won't leave the building!"

Without any further words Alex spun around, ran outside towards his car, and drove towards Queens. He wasn't sure whether it was the right decision, an airport – so many things could happen to her there. But after all, so many things could happen to her wherever she was.

~°~.~°~.

"If you had called her up before we could've skipped that shit!"

Alex took a deep breath, his exes fixed on the street, knowing he would certainly strangle Carter if he didn't concentrate on driving. Why could that guy never stop provoking people?

"What do you have your fucking cell for?"

"I called her! At the time you went to the loo. She didn't pick up! Fuck, you don't really want to make me responsible for what happened at the airport, do you?"

"Hell, no." He frowned as he thought it over. "Well, maybe –"

"Horton, just shut up, okay?? I can't stand it right now! All I want is to know is if Clear's alright. And I swear if you don't stop uttering that bullshit I'm gonna throw you out of the car!"

"Aw Browning, c'mon. It's quite cute how you try to scare me, but that's all. It's just cute."

Without warning, Alex drove into a side street and slammed on the brakes, causing a loud a loud chorus of hooting behind him. "GET OUT OR SHUT THE FUCK UP!! I HAVE NO TIME FOR THIS!!"

Carter only smirked as usual. "Since there's a small chance that I seem to have taken on that fucking clairvoyant-job, shouldn't you better be as close to me as possible?"

Alex closed his eyes for a moment. ~ Don't listen to him, just don't listen to him. ~ He turned the car round and drove back to the main street, which lead onto the highway.

"This was the first time you had a premonition?" he asked, trying to lead the conversation into more innocuous ways.

"No man, I had thousands of, I just didn't think it was necessary to tell anyone!"

"Listen -"

"No, you listen Browning!  "I don't want that fucking bullshit!! How the hell could you dare hand it on to me?? Kindly take it back!!"

Alex suppressed a laugh. "Carter, nobody wants it. You just get it. That's all."

Instead of retorting, he just snorted and silently stared out of the window for the rest of the journey.

~°~.~°~.

The next surprise waited for them as soon as they entered the departure lounge. The security officers seemed to have taken his demand to not let Clear leave the airport a bit too serious. They didn't give a damn about their explanations. By the time Alex and Carter reached the room she had been brought to, she was already more than upset. They could hear her courses outside as they approached he door.

"Alex!! Will you take your hands off of me?!" She looked daggers at the men, then flew into his arms as soon as he had identified himself and the officers let go of her. "What's wrong?"

He pulled her tight to himself and buried his face in her long blonde hair, not caring about the looks the officers gave him. He was sure they had considered her to be a criminal and now had to find that she was only some stupid FBI agent's girl, they had played the babysitter for. And he couldn't even tell them the truth. A second later his eyes were attracted by another person that was still sitting between the security people, looking quite pale.

Alex didn't believe what he saw. "Tod?"

"Hi", Tod greeted croaky, giving him a weak smile.

"Yeah look who I met at the airport in Boston." Clear smiled pityingly. "Poor Tod. He couldn't take something he ate this morning. I didn't want to leave him alone and so I took another flight. Something was wrong with mine, I don't know."

"So you haven't heard it yet?" Carter asked, then nodding to Tod. "Waggner."

"Horton", he mumbled back.

"Well, they won't show them the pics during the flight", Alex remarked.

"Can we get out of here?" Tod asked. "I really could need some fresh air."

"Carter, I'm so sorry", Clear said as they left the building and gave him a short hug, knowing he didn't appreciate that much, especially not in public.

"Yeah, guess we all are", he mumbled.

After they had packed their luggage into the trunk, Clear let herself fall into the seat beside Alex. "Man, what a way to start the day!" She turned around to face the others. "Okay, what's up?"

"Not here, we should talk bout that at home-"

"No way!" his fiancée insisted. "I'm not gonna wait the whole journey home."

Alex decided that the straight way was the best and so he told her what had happened at the JFK airport. Clear listened to him without interruption. Tod only stared at him. It had been a few months since they last had met. As they were growing up together Tod never would had thought that there could be anything in the entire world that could tear them apart at any point in their lives. But at the time that crash happened and Alex had started to get those premonitions, the gap between them had been built. Actually Tod was supposed to go on that trip to Paris as well, but had become ill two weeks before. When he heard what had happened and Alex had told him about his premonitions for the first time he had thought him to be still in a state of shock, but after all these people had died, beginning with Alex' other best friend George, Tod's elder brother, he believed him, willing to find an answer to the question why his brother had been taken away from him. But ever since then Alex had started to distance himself from him, intending to protect him, of course, and their friendship had never become that close again as it was before. Tod considered it to be an evil twist of fate that his former best friend now preferred to spend so much time with their former deadly enemy, Carter Horton, who had spent all of his life to chase and beat the shit out of them. He was ripped out of his thoughts as he noticed someone staring at him. "What?" he asked confused.

"I said", Clear repeated, "that it might be better if you come to our house and stay there for a while, until we have figured things out."

Tod nodded, trying to understand the meaning of her words. Did he look that ill that they were afraid something could happen to them while he was alone? Or did they really think that he was becoming part of that freaky game, which just seemed to have entered the next round? 

~°~.~°~.

"You sure you don't want me to call a doctor?" Alex asked, looking at Tod, who didn't look any better. Quite the reverse. But he stopped him: "Naw, I'll be just happy with lying here, puking now and then, like you know …. By the way, you think you could get me one of those FBI-cards, seems to be very impressive at people. Like a backstage pass."

Alex eyed him indignantly. "It's not only a backstage pass; this is an access-all-areas one."

"Well, can we finally end the polite phrases and discuss the incidents? Especially one part?" Carter interrupted them. "I dunno what about you; but I have some more things to do, gotta be in the firm this evening, it doesn't run itself."

"Wow, you're a member of the Firm?" Tod mocked at him. "I always had an idea that one day you – oh my God." He jumped up and ran into the bathroom, the door shutting with a loud bang behind him.

"He he, stupid bastard, you deserve it!" Carter grinned.

"Stop that, it's not funny!" Alex rebuked him, yelling over his shoulder: "Tod you okay? You need something?"

"Just gimme a puke's rest okay?" A muffled voice came out of the room.

"Aw you're right, Browning. It's not funny. It's hilarious!"

"Let's sit over there and talk", Clear said, pointing at the huge balcony. "I'll just get upstairs and put on something more comfortable." She hugged and kissed Alex before she left, causing Carter to smirk. "Aw, don't you worry bout me, if you wanna ago upstairs with her …."  

"Just don't listen to him", Clear said, unable to completely hide her smile.

"I've tried; it doesn't work", Alex grinned.

~°~.~°~.

Inside the bathroom, Tod sat down, leaning against the cold ceramic tiles of the wall. Why was he punished so hard for some innocent cream tartlets he had for breakfast? That just wasn't fair. He raised his hand and flushed the lavatory, then stood up and took a glance at his reflection in the mirror. God, he looked like death himself. He felt like his head was going to explode soon. Maybe some cold water would help. Undecided his eyes wandered between the wash basin and the bathtub. The faucet of the wash basin was a quite low one, so he decided in favour of the shower head.

The water was a welcome refreshment; he enjoyed the coolness it offered. As he reached for the faucet to turn on more water, he involuntarily dropped one of the bottles of shampoo. It often had made Clear upset that Alex never fully screw on the top of a bottle, but Tod didn't notice it falling down, the shampoo running out of it, covering the floor round the tub. Turning the water off, he put the shower head back onto its holder, then reached for one of the towels, but didn't find any, so he turned towards the wash basin where he knew he had seen some. The smooth sole of his shoe slipped on the liquid and he fell backwards. Trying to grab hold of something he ripped off the shower curtain, then felt his head bang hard against the tiles, making him dizzy for a moment. The next perception was far more frightening; out of some reason he couldn't breathe. He felt a pain round his neck, something was throttling him. Instinctively his fingers tried to pull it away, he didn't even know what it was, all he knew was that his powers faded quickly. Desperately his feet tried to find a hold, but only slipped on the wet ground. The blood rushed through his head, dizzying him even more. Soon it definitely would explode and there was nothing he could do. He looked around, but there was nothing that could help him cut himself off.

* So will he find something to cut himself off? Will he be rescued? Pathetic cliff-hanger, huh? I'm sorry, but I have to go n wanted to post at least the fic so far. And see what I meant? There are lots of things I changed, compared to my other fic.  Again sorry for that, but I'm sure it won't be too hard for you to figure things out. I know, these chapters are a bit corny and melancholy, but I wanted to explain what happened to the people in the past. And sometimes these things simply get corny, lol*