Three days later, they were back in Culiacan. They had driven all of the previous day and most of the night, so the sun was just rising when they arrived.

Sands was vaguely surprised at himself; he'd managed to keep his temper in check despite being trapped in a small car with El for what seemed like several eternities. Then again, he was pretty sure he had slept through most of the trip anyway. Not having to do one's share of the driving also helped, he figured.

'Of course,' supplied the small, sly voice in the back of his mind, 'Having Estrella fall asleep on your shoulder with El there to see it- twice –wasn't all bad either.'

Sands smirked to himself. 'Oh, gee, I dunno. I was pretty happy about the five million dollars in the trunk, too. Minor detail, I guess.'

Estrella's voice brought him back out of his reverie. "We're home."

Sands grinned. "Correction; you're home."

"Oh? You got somewhere else to go? A hot date, maybe?" Estrella teased.

Sands made a show of stretching as the car slowed to a stop on the street outside her small house, smirking. "Well, actually, there was something I forgot to tell you. You see, El and I got to talking on the way home, and..." He trailed off with a comically suggestive leer.

Estrella snorted, then, playing along, said vaguely, "Oh. That's nice. You boys will be cute together."

Rising to the bait, unable to resist and wishing he could see El's face, he drawled in an overly dramatic, soap-opera voice, "Oh, I suppose. But sometimes I wonder if he really loves me, or just likes my ass."

Estrella snickered a little, and he heard the crunch of gravel as she turned to look at El. "Well? What have you got to say for yourself?"

Silence.

Finally, El replied in a quiet, dry voice. "Americans. So vain and shallow. How could I not love him?" He turned, carrying the briefcase full of Guerro's money, and started walking slowly up to the house.

Sands' and Estrella's laughter drifted after him.

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Estrella was making dinner for the three of them when Sands heard the knock on the door. He heard El get up, his chair scraping on the tiled floor, and stalk over to the shut and bolted front door, his mariachi pants jingling cheerfully away. The bolt slid back after a moment's pause, and El probably tried to say something.

However, he didn't get the chance. A fast-moving cannon-ball of bright, chattering, cheerful energy slammed into Sands, almost sending over backwards off the chair, yelling, "Senor, senor! Regresó! Y no estás muerte!"

Sands grinned and grabbed double handfuls of the kid's baggy T-shirt, holding him at arm's length. "What, you think a bunch of stupid MexiCAN'Ts are gonna be enough to finish me off? Of course I made it back."

He felt the kid wriggle in his grip, so he let him go, resettling himself on the chair and fishing in the breast pocket of his black shirt for a cigarette, listening to the jingle of El's pants again as the Mariachi sat back down. He heard the kid start to walk to the door of the kitchen, presumably to visit Estrella, then turn around again to face him, though he could tell the kid wasn't looking at him. "What?" he demanded, around the cigarette held in his lips.

"Es... es el dinero? The kid asked, his voice breathless with wonder. He walked back over to stand next to the table.

Sands heard Estrella's footsteps on the floor as she walked over to stand behind Marco. He heard a sliding sound, leather on wood, as she grabbed the handle of the simple black briefcase that held pride of place in the center of the table and dragged it over where the kid could see it up close. Naturally, the kid asked if he could open it and see the money.

Estrella laughed. "What, you're telling me a man of the world such as yourself has never seen five millions dollars before?"

"Pienso qué no," he replied seriously.

She laughed again. "That's ok. Neither have we; I don't think any of us has bothered to open it yet. Actually... I was thinking that maybe, if it's ok with Mr. Sands and El, you could do the honors for us."

Sands grinned again. "Sure, why the fuck not?"

He heard the kid turn quickly to ask El. "Senor? Me permite?"

Sands heard no reply; he assumed that El nodded, because the kid gave an excited squeal of delight.

Sands shook his head at the kid's enthusiasm as he heard the click of the catches of the briefcase being released, and a faint creak as the lid was thrown back.

The explosion ripped through the room in an instant, hurling Sands back into the far wall with shattering force, something huge, unyielding, and incredibly heavy smashing into him a fraction of a second later. For just a moment, he felt terrible pain, but then it, and he, were gone.

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Sands came to gradually. He didn't know how long he'd lain unconscious in the wreckage of Estrella's house. He became aware, through a haze of vague unreality, that his right leg was twisted at a strange angle, that it hurt like blazing hell, and that there was something extremely heavy on top of it. He reached out, flailing blindly, and his questing hand smacked against a wooden surface. It appeared that the force of the explosion had flung the heavy oak kitchen table over on top of him.

He gritted his teeth as he twisted around, gasping and nearly blacking out as pain shot through his leg and hip, and got the fingers of both hands under the edge of the table. His back wrenched as he strained to lift it off his leg, his muscles screaming, but finally he got it enough off the floor to free his trapped limb, feeling with exquisite clarity what felt like at least two broken bones.

Dizziness washed over him and he lay back down on the cold tiles, feeling broken glass and other things shift and crunch under his body.

Estrella's voice, at first, was so choked and soft that he wondered if he was hearing anything at all. She was somewhere further into the room, by the sound of her, on the floor, and crying. "...Sands?"

"What... the fuck... do you want now?" he asked, with a ghost of his former strength.

"... Are you alright?"

He grimaced. "If I still had the ability, I'd be seeing goddamn spots, but I'll live. You?"

She didn't reply, but started crying again, harder. Her broken sobbing sent a strange chill through him, though he impatiently dismissed it. He tried to stand up, but a knife of pain wrenched in his leg and he fell back with a hiss and a curse.

In the end, he was forced to crawl on his hands and knees through the glass and wood and debris to her side. "Are you hurt?" he demanded, more harshly than he'd really intended, but what the fuck. He was having a bit of a bad day.

"N-no", she replied, her voice choked with emotion. "Here..." He felt her reach out and grab his right wrist, and realized with a sort of detached cynicism that he didn't even have the strength to get rid of her. She dragged his hand over about two feet or so and placed it on something.

Sands felt his heart leap into his throat as his fingers came into contact with fabric; worn T-shirt material. Slowly, mechanically, he felt his way up Marco's body from where Estrella had placed his hand on the kid's waist. On his chest, Sands found the slick wetness of a gaping wound that went deep. He forced himself to touch the kid's neck, to find the artery there.

No pulse. He was dead.

Sands dropped his hand without a word, and sat in silence for a long, long time. At last he asked, in a flat voice, "And El?"

"He's... gone," she whispered. She was no longer crying; perhaps too exhausted then, or perhaps her grief was too great to even allow that. Sands couldn't tell.

"Oh."

She didn't speak for so long that it almost startled him when she finally did. Her voice had no strength left in it, none of her passion or fire. Nothing of the woman he had known. "What will we do now?"

Sands considered. "What people like us have always done."

"What's... that?"

"Prove to the world that we're still standing. One way or another."

"And..." Her voice was barely a whisper. "Are we?"

Sands nodded once. "Still."

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End Part I