Disclaimer: See part 1 -- nothing's changed!

Speech within {} is in Cantonese

Many thanks to Kahva, Nessa and Gamine for patiently picking out the nits.

Please offer feedback -- it tells me how I'm doing.

~*~

Slowly, Kimberly climbed the stairs, heading for bed. She was late this evening. It was just past midnight, five days before Christmas. Taylor's early morning visit seemed like a lifetime ago. And though, at the time, she had taken Taylor's reassurances to heart, as the day had worn on, they had faded.

Other fears were presenting themselves in addition to the basic worry of whether or not Eric would come home safely. Taylor had said he was partnered by one of Peterson's top aides. A woman. Someone who unquestionably match Eric skill for skill.

It wasn't that Kimberly didn't trust Eric. She did. Implicitly.

And yet...

She couldn't help the doubt. Couldn't help but worry. Couldn't help but wonder if there might be another reason why he wouldn't come back.

She slipped into bed and cuddled the pillow close.

It was going to be another long night.

~*~

Dinner proved to be another trial to be endured as far as Eric was concerned. He could barely touch the food and Soong wanted to discuss the tmazacol demonstration. After his near-breakdown, it was the last thing Eric wanted to discuss. It was really only with Hana's help that he got through the meal. Mercifully, Soong also expected them to both be suffering jetlag, which meant he was quite happy to see his guests to bed at an early hour.

So now Eric was ostensibly trying to get some sleep while Hana conducted some form of secret contact with Peterson. Except that sleep was not forthcoming -- and Eric wasn't entirely sorry about that. He was tired, true -- exhausted was probably nearer the mark -- but he knew without a shadow of a doubt that if he slept, he was going to suffer more night-terrors. And then there was an underlying worry about when -- or if -- Hana would return.

He really was going to turn Peterson into dog food if he got out of this. Or maybe... Eric frowned. Didn't Wes' dad have connections to the DoD? Turning some of Peterson's methods against him held some appeal -- but flat out beating Peterson to a bloody pulp with his own hands seemed more satisfying.

Quick, light footsteps approached. Eric tensed. Was this Hana returning, or was this someone checking up on them? He willed his body to relax as he lay on the bed, trying as best he could to feign the sleep that wasn't coming anyhow else. He heard the door open and close. Then the light flicked on.

"{Peterson will be here tomorrow night,}" Hana announced, starting to slip her shoes off.

Eric opened his eyes -- then wished he hadn't as he was momentarily blinded by the light. He finally squinted up at Hana. "{No problems?}"

She smiled and shook her head. "{Not one.}" Her smile turned sympathetic. "{How're you doing?}"

Eric grimaced, sitting up. "{Don't suppose you carry Nitol in that magic purse of yours?}"

Hana winced. "{That bad?}"

"{Unless you want me screaming the place down,}" Eric retorted somewhat pointedly.

"{I'm sorry -- I didn't mean that quite how it sounded.}" She sighed. "{And no, I don't have any kind of sleeping pills.}" She hesitated. "{Are...}"

"{Yes,}" said Eric tersely. He tugged one of the blankets free from the bed and started to move towards the gap between bed and wall.

"{What're you doing?}"

"{Remember our arrangement?}"

"{I'll take the floor,}" said Hana. "{No sense...}"

"{Doesn't matter a shit if I'm wide awake on the floor, bed or ceiling -- wide awake is wide awake. You might as well sleep comfortable.}" Not permitting her any more argument, Eric settled himself on the floor, well wrapped up in the blanket. "{Sleep.}" He sighed. "{At least I can hide it if my eyes are bloodshot.}"

Shooting him a look that told him she'd probably like to argue the point more, Hana did as she was told, switched off the light and climbed into bed.

"{Which branch of the services were you in?}" Hana asked softly.

Eric smiled faintly. "{Who says I was?}"

He heard her snort inelegantly. "{I didn't graduate from Quantico top of my class for nothing.}" Eric said nothing. "{Peterson probably wouldn't have known about you flat out if you weren't one branch or other of the services.}" Eric still said nothing. "{And there's only a few candidates -- given what you said this afternoon.}"

"{If you say so.}"

"{Don't want me to go there, huh?}"

"{Not really.}" Eric sighed. "{It's old history. Who I was...what I was doesn't matter. I'm not who I was.}"

Sotto voce, he heard her mutter, in English, "God help me, I'm stuck here with someone into Zen."

Eric smiled faintly. "{Go to sleep.}"

He heard her turn over and for a few minutes there was silence.

"{Are you sure you don't want the bed?}"

"{Positive.}" Eric sighed. "{Ex-Marine. Master Sergeant. Kosovo. Think you can sleep now?}"

"{I didn't...}"

"{You did.}" Eric pinched the bridge of his nose. He could feel a headache beginning to flare into life. It had been a constant part of his life, until meeting Kimberly. Now, the two-year absence made it seem so much worse than it had before. How had he stood the constant pressure just behind his eyes?

"{Are you all right?}" Hana's voice jerked him from his thoughts.

"Huh?"

"{You were groaning. Are you all right?}"

"{Headache.}" There didn't seem to be any point in denying that.

He heard a rustle, then found Hana leaning off the bed somewhat precariously to offer him a small packet. "{No sleeping pills, but I do have ibuprofen. Don't argue.}"

Who's arguing? Eric wondered, fumbling to get one of the pills out of its packaging. He swallowed it gratefully, at the same time knowing it probably wasn't going to do that much good. On the other hand, he reflected as the pill went down, anything was better than nothing.

The next thing he knew, there was shaft of weak sunlight hitting the wall just above his head. Fuzzily, Eric wondered when -- or more accurately -- how that had happened.

"{My fault,}" said Hana from the bed, presumably guessing at what was running through his mind.

Eric blinked, blearily at her. "Huh?"

"{Industrial strength pain killer on an empty stomach.}"

Eric blinked again. "Oh." He blinked some more, then rubbed his eyes. "{You knocked me out?}"

"{Pretty much.}" Hana looked slightly sheepish.

"Oh." Eric pushed a hand through his hair. Apart from feeling unbelievably sleepy, he actually felt almost as good as he might have done with a proper night's sleep.

"{You're not upset?}"

"{You knew that was going on an empty stomach?}" Hana nodded. Eric sighed and shrugged. "{Half think I ought to be -- but no. I'm not a masochist. Operating without sleep is something I can do -- but that doesn't mean I like it.}" He offered a lopsided sort of smile. "{Thanks. I guess.}"

Hana smiled back. "{Figure it was the least I could do.}"

~*~

"I'm bored."

Two words that Kimberly loathed. Given the expression on Alice's face as she said them, Kimberly was beyond loathing the phrase.

"When's daddy coming home?" Alice wanted to know.

"I don't know, sweetheart," Kimberly answered, silently pleading for Alice to drop the subject.

"Why does he always go away?"

"He doesn't." It just feels like it.

"Yes he does," said Alice petulantly. "He's always going away. He doesn't love us."

"Alice, that is not true and you know that," said Kimberly, feeling her wafer-thin patience rapidly disappearing.

"He doesn't love me," Alice continued, paying Kimberly no heed. "That's why he's gone away." Unknowingly, the eight-year-old then echoed the constant refrain that was circling around Kimberly's mind: "He's not coming back."

"OK, that is it, madam," Kimberly snapped. "You will go to your room and you will not come down until I call you."

Alice fled, sobbing and yelling, "And you don't love me either!"

"Oh, I do love you, but right now I don't love the way you're behaving."

The only response was the slam of Alice's bedroom door. Kimberly collapsed back into her seat and burst into tears herself. This sucks!

~*~

Breakfast, Eric wasn't entirely surprised to learn, was in the courtyard garden under the pergola where they'd taken tea the previous day. After that followed a morning of heavy negotiations. Here, at least, he was on territory he knew. Time spent arguing budgetary details with Mr Collins and assorted corporate clones at Biolab on behalf of the Silver Guardians had refined his negotiating technique and Soong wasn't very different from Mr Collins. In fact, he mused over a private, though non-insect-free, lunch, though I know Wes' dad wouldn't thank me for the comparison, but for the legalities, Soong and Alexander are exactly the same.

"{It's going well,}" Hana commented, drawing Eric from his thoughts.

"{Too well?}"

Hana smiled and shook her head. "{No -- perfectly.}"

Eric lifted his eyebrows. "{You're happy?}"

"{Don't sound so surprised,}" she responded, laughing. "{I have faith in your negotiating skills.}"

~*~

Jen watched Kimberly watching Rick crawling around on his colourful play-rug and sighed. Kimberly looked terrible. The last five days had taken a visible toll. The other woman looked pale and tired and, Jen was almost positive, thinner. Time to take action.

"How are you doing, Kim?" she asked.

Kimberly opened her mouth to reply, and Jen could practically see the light and carefree answer Kimberly wanted to give evaporate. "I miss him," she finally whispered.

"Oh, Kim..." Jen leaned over and wrapped her arms around her friend, trying to reassure her. "It's gonna be OK."

Kimberly burst into tears that Jen suspected had very little to do with fluctuating hormones. "Is it?"

"Kim?"

"What if...what if he doesn't want to come back to me?" Kimberly asked. "I...I mean..."

"Kim, stop," said Jen firmly. She pulled back a little so as to meet Kimberly's tear-soaked gaze. "Whatever else does or doesn't happen, the one thing I can promise you is that there is no danger of Eric 'not wanting' to come back. He would walk over hot coals and broken glass for you."

"I...want to...to...but...look at me!" Kimberly exclaimed. "I...I'm fat...and he...he's somewhere...with...this gorgeous...female spy...who...who's pretending to be his wife...and...and what if...what if he likes that better? I...I mean..."

"One," said Jen patiently. "You're not fat, you're pregnant. Two, you're carrying Eric's child. He's been on cloud nine ever since you told him. Kim -- he's been whistling around SGHQ. He's so happy with his life with you it's almost disgusting!" Jen smiled to take any sting out of her words. "The Eric Myers I met when I first came to this century was a lot of things, but happy wasn't one of them."

"But..."

"No buts," said Jen resolutely. "You're the person who's done that. Let me put it another way," she continued when Kimberly moved to object. "In the two years you guys have been together, how many nightmares has Eric suffered?"

Kimberly frowned. "I...I...I'm not...what...?"

"How many times has he woken up screaming in the middle of the night?" Jen asked.

"He...hasn't," Kimberly managed. "But...how...?"

"I shared a house with him for six weeks -- more or less -- when we were after Biocon," Jen pointed out. "Not a set of circumstances where something like screaming terrors could be exactly hidden."

"But...he didn't..."

"He did," said Jen quietly. She made a decision. "The first night we were there. We both went to bed quite early. He went to sleep with his CD on a constant repeat..."

"That's a habit I've broken him of," Kimberly put in, smiling faintly.

Jen nodded. "It was on too loud and it was keeping me awake, so I snuck into his room and turned it off. I went to sleep, but the next thing I knew, it was about two o'clock in the morning and something had woken me. I didn't know what it was. Then I heard it again."

Despite herself, Kimberly asked, "What was it?"

"A whimper," said Jen. "It was just this really quiet, quiet sound, but it was so wrong, you know?" Kimberly nodded. "It took me all of thirty seconds to realise something was up. I went into Eric's room, expecting to find him tossing and turning -- that was how anyone else I'd ever met had nightmares." Kimberly nodded. "But he wasn't. He was rigid in bed -- as if he was in restraints. And then he screamed." Jen shivered, hearing the echo of that ghastly sound. "I tried to wake him up..."

"Did you know what it was about?" Kimberly asked softly.

"I put two and two together," said Jen. "I knew about the scars on his back...found out about those by accident, almost, when Ransik was here." Kimberly nodded at that and absently helped herself to one of the so far untouched crackers on the plate on the table between them. That had to be a good sign. "He's never told me in words -- and I've never asked." Kimberly nodded once more. "That night...I ended up having to shake him awake -- he was so deep in the dream...that even when he woke up, he wasn't awake."

"What happened?"

"He threw me across the room," Jen replied. "I'm lucky he wasn't fully awake -- if he'd done it fully awake, we wouldn't be having this conversation." Kimberly shuddered. "After that, he was very, very careful not to sleep too deeply. In fact, I don't think in that six weeks, or the three weeks or so that followed before Wes and I had to go to Merle Askot's trial, he really slept at all. He was too scared he'd give a repeat performance."

"I...thought he looked tired," Kimberly admitted.

Jen nodded. "He was." There was a lengthy pause as Kimberly digested that, then Jen asked gently, "How many times has he done that since you got together?"

"He hasn't," Kimberly admitted.

"You make him feel safe, Kim," said Jen softly. "You took him in and gave him a place where he could be safe. He's not going to give that up. Not for anything, least of all Frank Peterson and his spy games."

"You...really think so?"

"I know so," Jen replied. "Now," she continued, "if you can keep an eye on Rick for me, I'm going to make you some chicken soup."

"I'm not..."

Jen held up a hand, stalling the protest. "I'm not taking arguments. When was the last time you ate a whole meal?" Kimberly's mouth closed. "That's what I thought." She got to her feet. "Chicken soup, crackers and some fruit to follow."

~*~

Eric sank down onto the bed, more grateful for Hana's headache cure of the night before than he thought would have been possible.

"{Tough afternoon,}" Hana commented as she closed the door behind them.

"{No kidding.}"

Where the morning had been reasonably straight forward, the afternoon session of negotiations had proved increasingly complex. Soong, it seemed, was looking for a US based broker, in addition to seeking buyers for tmazacol. As far as he was concerned, Chen Wu was the perfect man for the job. Provided the price was right. Keeping up with the discussion had taken all of Eric's concentration and the gaps in his Cantonese were beginning to make themselves known -- if not to Soong, then certainly to himself and Hana. The thought of having coped with this on no sleep...

"{What now?}" Eric asked as Hana slipped off her shoes.

"{We have dinner,}" she responded heading into the bathroom.

"{That wasn't what I meant.}"

Hana stuck her head out of the bathroom. "{I know. But I can't answer that question -- we've got to wait and see.}"

Oh great...

~*~

Peterson crouched beside Airwolf's nose and stared out into the jungle. December twenty-first. Shortest day of the year in the northern hemisphere -- which gave plenty of nightfall for what was planned.

Sooner it's done, the sooner Eric's out of this, Peterson mused. And the better for everyone. Eric probably wouldn't believe it -- and God knew, Eric had little enough reason to believe it -- but Peterson regretted every single second of the last six days. Every single second and then some. If this hadn't truly been the last option...

Two years of hard work and one wrong move by the agent in place had forced them into plan Z. It was just as well Jimmy Hong was dead or Peterson would probably have already strangled him. Soong had moved all his facilities to this location and left them scrabbling for intelligence. No way to work someone else into Soong's retinue in time to prevent any tmazacol from reaching the outside world. The only option was to set up someone as a potential buyer.

Someone believable.

Soong preferred to deal with the Asian underworld. Though he did deal with the Russian mob occasionally, the rest of the European mob had so far turned their noses up to his products. They had their own sources. Therefore whatever buyer was evolved had to be Asian. The only Asiatic employees of The Firm, which numbered only a hundred and fifty employees at most and the majority of them were researchers and technicians, were Hana and Jimmy, and when the shit hit the fan three weeks earlier, that number went down to just one. And rather than waste time and risk the tmazacol getting out, Peterson had turned to the one person outside The Firm he knew could do the job.

Eric.

It was the easy route. He knew it. It would have even been better if he'd called Eric in when the shit first started flying, but at that point, he'd still held out a hope of resolving this some other way. You fucked up, Frank.

From a pocket in the olive-drab jumpsuit he was wearing as jungle camouflage he pulled a dog-eared photograph. Captured when Eric was just two, by grandparents who barely tolerated the child. It had been sent to him with a stilted note telling him to please leave Annie alone. It was the only piece of Eric's childhood he'd ever been able to have. So many mistakes.

"Cute kid."

Peterson started. He hadn't heard Taylor walk up behind him. "What...?"

Looking amused, Taylor pointed to the photograph. "Cute kid."

"Wha...oh." Peterson found himself blushing a little bit. "My son."

"Looks like that photo's done a few miles," Taylor commented, moving to crouch beside him. "Guess it's not all that recent."

"He'll be thirty in March." I hope.

Taylor snickered. "Same age as..." She trailed off. "No."

Peterson looked at the blonde, who was shaking her head now. "No, what?"

"Le'me..." Without so much as a by your leave, Taylor twitched the photograph out of Peterson's fingers and studied it. "It has to be..." She handed the photograph back. "Eric."

For a moment, Peterson wondered whether or not he should try to bluff. Eric surely had good reasons for not having already told Taylor of their relationship. Like the fact that bluntly we don't have one, he realised. And I know exactly where the fault for that lies...and it's not with Annie's parents. "Yeah." He sighed. "It is."

There was a lengthy silence. He guessed Taylor was probably putting together a few suspicions. He slid the photograph back into his pocket.

"Knowing Eric," Taylor finally said, "he's not here by choice." She shook her head again. "You really are a cold son of a bitch -- coercing your son into this..."

"I didn't have a choice."

Taylor snorted, getting back to her feet. "Right. Sure you didn't."

"I didn't."

"Prove it," Taylor snapped. "Why didn't you have any choice?"

Peterson looked down. There had been alternatives -- not as convenient, sure, but...

"You just picked the one that gave you most control," Taylor judged.

"I...didn't." Had he?

Taylor snorted again. "Right. You just keep telling yourself that. Maybe you can even delude yourself, but you're not fooling anyone else." Taylor turned towards Airwolf. "And if you were any sort of a father, it wouldn't be Eric in there. Not as some easy route out of trouble." The hatch popped. "An hour to dusk." Airwolf's hydraulics settled a little as Taylor climbed in, then the hatch sealed again.

~*~

Eric lay on the floor staring up at the ceiling. No headache tonight -- nor an empty stomach -- so no industrial strength painkillers. Hana had offered him one anyway. He'd declined. Kim'd hand me my ass for being 'macho', he mused, smiling to himself. Except that this wasn't being 'macho'. This was avoiding past mistakes. It was why he'd learned to sleep with music on.

He hadn't quite been addicted, but he hadn't been too far from it either.

Besides, he mused. If Peterson's commandos do their job, this is all over. I can go home.

~*~

The commandos were good, but Eric's assessment -- as relayed by Hana -- was accurate. There was almost no way to raid this place. Peterson grimaced. Improvisation. This was Eric's strong suit, not his.

Hm.

Maybe he should let Eric do what Eric did best.

In a soft undertone, he spoke to the leader of the commandos. "Change of plan..."

TO BE CONTINUED...