Chapter 3

Dylan watched her fried taking her own car and heading home. She entered her apartment, which looked much cleaner now, especially the kitchen. She sat down at the table, some dish was left there, Alex probably had not know where Dylan used to keep them. It was not important now.

The angel took out the medallion and looked at it. The chain was broken, naturally it was. She had torn it from his neck, as he had torn out her hair in the same moment. She scratched her head, were her hair was missing. The Thin Man had saved Max that day. They would have come too late to rescue him. Emmer's death only meant, that they could not asked him, who had ordered him to kill Max. Well, they all had been shocked at first, but the re-appearance of the Thin Man had left a greater impression with the angels.

Especially his sudden intrusion on the roof fight. Dylan remembered how Alex had told the Thompsen about meeting him. He must have stabbed that guy. Alex had left that fact out, but it made sense. O'Grady took his rapier from him after he had rushed to her rescue. She liked remembering the way he kissed her. For that moment everything seemed to be perfect. Once again Seamus destroyed it.

Like he had when her name had been Helen. She had been so happy and content. Dylan remembered her shock as Seamus pulled out his gun shooting the man who was talking to him and all right in front of her eyes. They had broken rules before, but just tiny rules, she never had imagined him to be a cold blooded killer. As walked back to the car and told her he would kill her, if she dared to tell anyone, she realised that she did not knew this man. The man she had loved never had existed. That had hurt.

Dylan suddenly knew why she had testified against him. It was not so much about killing the drug-dealer, for that had been what the man was - a rival who dared to invade O'Grady territory. It was about destroying her dreams, playing her for a fool and threatening her. She was not sure what he had seen in her, but was sure that he had only used her. He had frightened her, but he also made her even angrier with his death threat.

Somehow she had managed to wind up with the strangest guys, but she had never been that madly in love with any of them. Either they became weirder and weirder till it was unbearable or they turned out to ruthless killers. That certainly prevented her from crying about them for one second. Well, she had fancied Emmers, but that was it, nothing more. He had been cute and she enjoyed Alex and Nat teasing her about it.

How did the Thin Man fit in there? She knew he was an assassin. Even protecting someone this was obvious, he did not waste time. He killed his enemies with deadly elegance. Why made it her so sad, that she would never found out, what might have happened if the Thin Man had not died. Or what he was trying to tell her. She had felt so honoured and excited about him trying to speak to hear. She was sure, what happened between them really meant something to him. "Damm you, Seamus", she suddenly yelled grabbing a plate from the table. It smashed against the wall and broke into numerous pieces.

Dylan learned that it was easier to deal with betrayal, no matter how bad it had been, then to cope with losing something she had just held long enough to wonder what it might have been. She had no appetite and went into her living room that was also her bed room. She turned on to the TV, she did want to think about what happened. She was concentrating real hard on a cartoon for quite some time. Until the phone rang and for a moment she considered pulling the cable, but then she picked up.

"Dylan?" It was Max. "I just wanted to call and tell you that I'm sorry, if anything I said upset you. Bosley told me that you seemed a bit off balance and…"

"No, no, Max, no need to feel guilty. You couldn't have known. It was just too fresh, I could not party and think about what happened."

"The man that saved me … he is really dead, isn't he?" the boy said with a sad tone. "I'd sure had liked to thank him."

For some reason it felt good talking to Max and she went on telling him precisely, what had happened and what they had done today. Max was a good listener and it helped talking to him. She almost forget that he was just a teen. He could have hugged him as he ranted on about Seamus survival. "Compared to this case the movie was almost boring" he said finally after she had ended her explanation.

"Tell me about it" she asked him and Max began a long summary of the movie. Almost as long as the movie itself. Dylan was sure she had not missed anything at all. Nevertheless she enjoyed listening to Max who described with growing excitement the events in the movie. Yet alone being so close to its star. Finally his new mother ushered him away from the phone and told him to go to bed.

Dylan hung up and looked at her clock. It was about ten and she began to feel her empty stomach aching. So she called for a pizza and unplugged the phone. In case something important was going, Bosley or the angels could reach her always over her cellular. An hour later she was asleep - the pizza at the edge of her bed, only half eaten, the TV still running and again dressed and with her make-up on her face.

The next day she had no obligations. After she had taken a bath and dressed herself, Dylan made herself a few toasts. Later she went to a jeweller in the city and had the chain of the Thin Man's medallion fixed. She put it around her neck and tug it under her shirt. She did not wanted anyone to see her wearing it, but she had to.

Uncertain how to spend the day she decided to stroll down the street and occupy herself with window shopping. Except that she had no real interest and barely realised that she passed a shoe-shop, a second-hand-boutique and an ice-café, before her cell rang. 'Yes, something happened!' she fetched it from her pocket and said: "Yep?"

"Dylan, I really could use a sparing partner, do you mind coming over to the agency?" Alex sounded really upset - angry. "Ok, I'll be there in a few minutes."

It was not nearly as good as a new assignment, but she was glad for the diversion. She wondered why her friend was so outraged. Alex tried to hide it, but even if she had not made the comment about the sparing fight, her friend would have noticed. She hurried to her car, jumped in and a few minutes later, she parked at the agency.

Alex waited for her in the hall. By her appearance Dylan could tell that she was up to fencing. After she was properly dressed, she dared to ask what had happened. Alex flinched her teeth and started an attack. Dylan defended and re-attacked, while the angry angel told what had upset her. "It's Jason!" she cursed. "That fool!" She launched a heavy attack and nearly hit the mask off Dylan. But the sad angel had still her reflexes and started to enjoy the exercise by fighting back, dodging and landing hits of her own.

"What did he do?", she asked.

"He made my father believe we are call-girls!" Alex shouted almost loosing balance as she told her friend.

Dylan laughed: "No really?" Then she laughed louder. The Asian angel suddenly landed a hit right over her heart. Beep!

"Don't you set it straight right away?" Dylan asked confused.

"Couldn't! He had a call and flew home yesterday and I can't reach him!" Alex answered accompanied by a new attack.

"So what did you told Jason?" the redhead hoped that she had not done anything harsh. Alex was not easy to upset, but when it happened she was good at getting it back at them. She barely avoided an other hit that would have been number five. Instead she scored her third one.

"I did not say that much, but I shattered his precious couch table", the black haired woman, jumped forward and now it was on Dylan to land a remarkable hit. "With your forehead?"

"No, not with my head, my fist, but he did not looked to happy, I told him to leave my house and never come back." She withdrew and made a more disciplined attack. Dylan was warming up, she successfully defended herself and replied: "Ouch ,that is not good."

After dozens of hits on each side, Alex's aggression was gone and she decided, that she believed to be able to face Jason again. "Sorry for calling you out of the blue", she told Dylan under the shower. "No problem, I needed it, too", replied she shampooing her hair in the cabin next to Alex. In fact she felt better. The frustration of the last day had finally lessened and the endorphins from the exercise had helped her a great deal. "We should have done this yesterday."

"Oh, I don't know", Alex replied, "Yesterday I could hardly move without feeling any pain." She looked down at her legs and the cuts on them.

"Me, too, but actually that didn't bother me, I still feel my left shoulder from the impact into the underground station."

Later - wearing a new set of cloth - they took a look at the office, but Bosley was not here. Probably enjoying cake and candies at home. Alex went then to call her father and Dylan went to her car. She replaced the medallion before she started the engine. Of course she had to take it off, or Alex would have seen it. She was not sure whether her friend would have understand this. She was not up to any discussion about the issue - at least at the moment.

The next morning she became utterly depressed before she even had entered the bath room. A letter with a black line across it lay on her floor. She knew what it was before she picked it up. It was an invitation to the Thin Man's funeral. She looked at the date: "Tomorrow", she sighed. Maybe she could go on with her life after that, she had no choice.

They all had been invited. Alex, Natalie Dylan, Bosley and Max. Alright an invitation for Charlie had also been send to the agency, the mother superior had of course no idea, what a private person Charles Townsend was. It was a warm day, a soft wind rattled through the leaves and the sky was blue. A soft and light tone that reminded Dylan of the Thin Mans eyes.

They wore black and still felt displaced between the nuns and the other orphans in their school uniforms. Silently they stood around the grave, with the closed oak coffin placed above his final resting place. After the mother had assured Dylan that it was best left closed, she had not asked further. She remembered Thompsen telling her that he was hit by the falling letter. Something she definitely need not to know.

The priest that conducted the ceremony started to thank the mother superior for her support and told everyone that she had helped him to find the right words. He need not said that, it was obvious that the words came from someone that had loved him. Dylan never gave much to words, she had learned how sweet and yet false they could be, but those spoken by the priest had a comforting effect.

The priest talked about how he came to orphanage, how he vanished one day only to return giving his support to those who had taken care of him. Phrases from the bible were mixed in between and each of them meant something. They knew that their decision not to reveal his other life to the nuns had been the right one.

Max looked worried at the red-haired Angel that was unlike him quite fond of her new name. After the priest was finished they remained a moment in silence. Then a few workers began to pull away the bars and to lower the coffin into the dark grave. As they were finished the mother superior stepped to the foot end. She had picked up a handful of earth from a stone bowl near the grave. She stood a moment before it, then she dropped the earth and went on. Each nun repeated the action, either remaining there a moment silently or saying a short prayer.

Finally it was Max and Bosleys turn. Max went up and dropping his handful he silently thanked him for saving him. Then Bosley followed and said loud: "Thanks for saving the angels." Which caused the mother superior to look quite strange. Then only the girls remained. None of them liked the idea of throwing earth on the coffin. Not only because Dylan hated it. The earth hitting the coffin made really an awful sound. The redheaded angel felt very unsettled by the noise.

She sighed wit relief as she saw Natalie paying her last respects holding a beautiful red-orange tulip in her hand. It was from her and Pete's garden. She threw it on his grave instead. She forgave him his attack on her and thanked him for saving her friends. Natalie could not bring herself to be angry with someone who died for one of her friends.

Then it was Alex turn, she had one of her orchids from her collections between her fingers. She also thanked him for saving Dylan and helping her. Then she dropped the magnificent flower into the grave. She was so calm and sincere, while Dylan felt unease and tension. She was the last one to pay her respects and she did not felt good with all the eyes upon her. Slowly she stepped closer. Funerals were so final, it was as worse as identifying him in the morgue.

She nervously turned her flower between her fingers. She had neither a garden or beautiful flowers in her apartment. She had not even green plants. Dylan always forgot to water them. So she had gone into a flower shop this morning deciding to buy one that was fitting. A long time she stand before very beautiful red roses, but that did not felt right. So she finally decided to buy the most perfect looking white rose.

She stood there uncertain looking down at the coffin, picturing him lying there. His eyes closed for ever, those haunting remarkable eyes. 'Don't think about it', she told herself, but she had to. She thought about their embrace, the kiss how he had ripped out her hair. Then she knew what she was going to do. She find her fingers around some of her hair and with all her strength ripped it out. The uttered a silent gasp and then Dylan wrapped her hair around the rose, before she dropped it into the grave.

She looked up and saw the mother superior nodding at her with a proud face. The nun seemed to agree that he would appreciate this last gift from her. Turning to her friends she sniffed realising that her eyes were full of tears that began running down her cheeks. Nat and Alex hugged her from each side and they slowly walked to their car.