I'm so sorry that its been so long between updates but I've been uber busy with uni stuff and life in general. I am starting to sound like such a broken record.

Thank you for all the reviews. They really keep me happy as shallow as that may sound. I've just got some feedback on the penultimate chapter (thanks for that Steph) and so this story should be finished soon. Promise.

Lexa hated giving speeches. She had always been good at the public speaking thing but she always sounded, at least to herself like she was overly pretentious or completely dumb. It was a thin line between telling people too much and not telling them enough. She could feel his presence behind her, supporting her as she began to speak. If she could have without getting too embarrassed she would have turned around and started making out with him for everything he did for her. Instead she reached her hand back and brushed it against his leg, a sign that she was doing okay.

Shalimar looked out at the group of people assembled in front of her. She recognised some of them from the various places she had entered in the last few days. Some of the CIA agents had been in the building in New York, behind the shop, some had been at the sight of the fire but everything had been such a blur that she couldn't picture any of them clearly. The rest of the Mutant X team was there along with Daveigh, the bruise showing up from across the room. Taylor had been insistent on coming to the meeting but her stubborn streak was not nearly a match for Shalimar's. The girl had been left in a room with a TV set and a couple of books, a situation Shalimar was far from happy with. But there was nothing else to be done with her.

He opened up the sheath of papers everyone had been given, trying to concentrate when all he could think about were the women in his life, specifically Shalimar and Taylor. He didn't want to have to fight the Dominion. There weren't just the risks to think about. The fact that they might all end up dead paled in comparison to his now intense desire to live a normal life. It had never occurred to him before that a normal existence could be just as exciting as the one he had with Mutant X. He had always assumed that it would be boring as hell and it had. Before he joined the team no amount of stealing and crime could satisfy his lust for adrenaline thrills, and life in the four years after Mutant X fell apart had been anything but interesting. But being with Taylor was so much more satisfying and Shalimar was the best thing that had ever happened to him. As strange as it sounded to him he wanted to live the life that had always repulsed him on some level. He looked across at the blonde. She was staring intently at the documents held in her hands, her eyes scanning quickly. He could imagine living without her, but in that figment he was falling apart.

'So, which do you propose we go for?'

Lexa looked up at the agent who had spoken. The CIA had the locations of five buildings across North America. Each location was different from the next, the majority of them high rise buildings in the centre of a city and on many of the floors could be found lawyers and accountants but on some of those floors the Dominion had set up shop. The initial plan was to hit one of the buildings with all the force the CIA had. They would invade, confiscate all computer equipment and capture as many Dominion employees as possible, including one of the five members of the Dominion council. But the truth was Lexa didn't have a clue which building they should aim for. Her position on the Dominion was hardly objective and if she could have she would have said to blow them all off the face of the earth, screw the risk to human life. She was not the only one who wanted to see the Dominion gone forever. But, attacking all five buildings would require simultaneous operations in five different cities and there was no way Lexa could call up that kind of manpower, and no way her supervisors would let her try.

'There are obviously benefits to taking apart each of them,' Jesse said, standing up and walking to Lexa's side. He knew she was uncomfortable with talking in front of numerous people and although he was possibly more so he could sense her discomfort at being put on the spot. 'The building in Houston is large and the Dominion control the largest number of floors. It has the potential to be a more advantageous target to us given that out overall objective is to stop the Dominion permanently. We take apart that cell and it'll presumably take the Dominion more time to repair and rebuild. But the truth of the matter is that we have no idea what exactly is contained inside each facility. It could be that the smaller cells are more important. It would be ideal if we could take them all out of the game but we don't have that kind of manpower, not if we're going to be making a direct attack.'

'What do you mean by direct attack?' Shalimar asked, an unapologetic frown on her face. She didn't have a clue what most of these people were talking about but if she was going to have any part of the assignment she was sure as hell gonna make it her mission to find out.

'A direct attack would entail everyone in this room going into the building. It wouldn't be as covert as an indirect attack,' Jesse explained.

'But surely that's more dangerous than an indirect attack.'

'There are risks, of course but there's more danger to a small group of people infiltrating the building. This way we don't risk the lives of too many agents.'

'That's crap,' Shalimar replied, her voice rising as she lost control of her temper. 'No offence to the system around here, I'm sure its worked extremely well in the past but there are now five new mutants on this team, one of which can actually become invisible and another who imitates that particular trait pretty damn well. And what happens once you've taken out one building. It'll give the other cells time to get the hell away from potential trouble and then we'll never stop the Dominion.'

'Well, do you have better plan in mind?' one of the more senior agents piped up, a sceptical look on his face.

'There are five separate buildings, all of them with intricate blueprints in that file you're holding there. Conveniently there are five new mutants, all of them with the ability to take out a good few people. You send in teams headed up by us, five teams all hitting simultaneously.'

'That's crazy enough that it might actually work,' Lexa muttered.

'I still say its too dangerous. We hit one building and the Dominion gets the message that we're completely serious about dealing with them,' Jesse said.

'Or we take out all five locations and then we don't have to show them anything because they're all in custody or dead,' Shalimar said. Her voice rose above everyone else's, her jaw locked when she had finished speaking, her fist clenched tightly around the papers. 'I'm fed up of making pathetic little moves against these people while they run around acting like they own the world,' she declared before throwing the folder down onto the table and storming from the room. The action had clearly ended the meeting, everyone too uncomfortable at her outburst to talk anymore. Brennan walked over to Jesse and Lexa.

'She's under a lot of stress at the moment,' Lexa said, hoisting herself onto a tabletop. 'She didn't mean to shout at you.'

'But she's right isn't she?' Jesse replied. 'We've hardly been the Dominions biggest threat.'

'What are you talking about? We've taken down some of the key members of the Dominion. They're scared and what makes it worse for them is that they know we're coming. When we took back Taylor we sent a clear message, one that they won't have missed out on.'

'She may not be right about everything but she may have a good plan in the making,' Brennan said, taking a seat next to Lexa.

'You mean about hitting the five different targets all at once?' Jesse asked, already knowing the answer.

'Yeah. If small teams are sent in, all of them headed up by a new mutant then not only can vital information be gained but the facilities can be taken apart from the inside. We can't blow the buildings up but surely if we dismantle their system it'll stop them.'

'So, we go in, we dismantle their computer systems. Simple enough,' Lexa countered. 'But what do we do with all the people? Small teams can't take everyone into custody.'

'And haven't you always said that not everyone who works for the Dominion is evil. What's the bet that all of the lower level employees know nothing about what the Dominion's really doing? It says in the file that there are five members of the Dominion council left, each of them heading up one of the five buildings. You send in a new mutant and they can take care of the council members while some of the CIA guys deal with the computer stuff.'

'You're actually being serious, aren't you?' Lexa asked.

'I am.'

Jesse gently pushed open the door to the office, taking in the sleeping twosome. They were on a sofa, both looking like the ferals that they truly were. Shalimar was curled up in the foetal position with her back pushed against the back of the couch, Taylor was lying with her back to Shalimar, fitting into her. Shalimar's arm was wrapped around her daughter and he could see the gentle rise and fall of her chest from where he stood by the door. He closed it quietly behind him but not quietly enough for Shalimar. Her eyes shot open, the fear that at any moment Taylor could be snatched from her once more not alleviated even in one of the top security buildings in the country. She looked around her, her heart beating so hard and fast she thought it was going to jump right out of her mouth. As she took in Jesse she became instantly relaxed. She slipped out from between Taylor and the couch and stepped lightly across the floor towards her brother. When she got close enough she opened her arms, her bottom lip quivering, needing the support of the one guy who would never run from her. He pulled her into an embrace that had been a long time coming. They held each other, Shalimar's legs weakening and her arms holding tight around his neck. She rested her head against his chest, hearing his heartbeat, feeling it through his shirt. He rested his chin against the top of her head, allowing himself the opportunity to really look at the little girl on the couch.

'Okay,' he whispered.

Shalimar pulled away from him, looking straight into his bright blue eyes. 'Okay what?'

'Okay, we'll do it your way.'

'There will be teams of three people, each of them focusing on one building. One of you will gather all the information you can from the Dominion's computer system which will obviously involve a lot of hacking, and the second agent will watch your back. The new mutants in the team will locate and capture a Dominion council member. There will be, we suspect a lot of information to extract so you'll have to work fast. Any questions so far?'

'Whose teams are we on?' called out an agent from the back of the room.

'That information is enclosed in the folders being handed out now. All the data in those folders is case specific so you will have to get together as a team to talk about how exactly you're gonna do this.'

Jesse leant back against the table behind him, having said his bit. He was relieved that the whole process was at last getting under way. And he would be eternally happy when it was all over. As happy as he was to have Brennan and Shalimar back in his life the circumstances were kind of putting a damper on the reunion.

Brennan flicked through the sheets of paper he had just been handed. There were a lot of them, many he didn't understand, some he did. His building was the biggest, the building in Houston. He felt proud but he wasn't sure why. He shouldn't have been happy about getting one of the bigger life or death jobs, in fact he got the distinct feeling that he should have turned and ran from the CIA, escaping with his life while he still could. But there was something about the Dominion that always made attacks against them so much more rewarding. It was possibly the fact that they were sadistic murderers but he couldn't be sure.

'So, where are you going?' Shalimar asked.

'Houston. You?'

'Seattle.'

'They like sending us to the farthest corners of the earth, don't they?' he said wryly.

'It'll only be a few hours,' she said, reassuringly, wondering if that really was how long it would take. It hadn't occurred to her before that she might not be coming away from this mission. She had been through so much in her life that she had started taking it for granted that things would simply go her way. But the Dominion was bigger, they were more powerful than Mutant X. Maybe this was one group that couldn't be taken down. Her own mortality came rushing towards her, her inability to beat everything hit her in the chest and winded her slightly.

'You okay?' he asked, concern edging his features.

'Yeah,' she replied.

He didn't believe her. He knew she was hiding something. And he would have loved to have said that it didn't matter but it did, more than she would ever know. He needed to know what was going on in her head because if he didn't the thoughts rushing around in his own skull didn't make a difference.

'We're gonna be okay,' he said quietly, in a voice meant for her ears only.

'I know I've asked before but how exactly do you do that?'

He grinned, the old smile of a guy with the bare minimum of worries in the world. 'That time, sorry to disappoint you was a lucky guess.'

A laugh escaped from her lips, breaking the atmosphere of the room and causing more than Brennan to smile.

'You two okay with Houston and Seattle?' Lexa asked.

'Yeah, any reason why we got those particular cities?' Shalimar asked.

'Pulled the names out of a hat,' Lexa offered, the sarcasm obvious from the slight elevation present at the corners of her mouth. 'Kidding. We tried to suit each building with specific abilities. All of them have different security measures for the main reason that if one person manages to break their way into one building they won't necessarily be able to get into all the others. The Houston location has an alarm system that, we assumed would provide a particular challenge for Sparky here.'

'And I do like a challenge,' he sparred back.

'And the Seattle one has a weakness in that all its ventilation shafts are connected. There's very little room in the shafts but that shouldn't prove to be too much of a problem for Shal.'

'Damn straight,' she affirmed.

'And where are you two going?' Brennan asked.

'Toronto,' said Jesse.

'Washington DC.'

'The Dominion really are pushing their luck setting up in the same city as the government of the United States,' Brennan retorted.

'In the same building none the less. They always did think a little too much of themselves,' Lexa replied.

'And where are we sending Daveigh?' Shalimar asked, a hint at the bitterness she still felt appearing in her tone.

'Denver,' Jesse replied.

'And when do we go?'

'Tomorrow morning, the times differ depending on how far people have to travel. We've got the night at Sanctuary at least.'

Is there anywhere Daveigh can stay for tonight?' Brennan asked.

'She could stay here. Its a secure facility and there'll be people around all night. She could take my office. Why?' Lexa said.

'We all know the risks of this mission. Its gonna be dangerous and some of us might not be coming back,' Brennan said, his tone matter of fact. 'And as hard as that is to accept I would rather deal with that possibility and spend one last night at Sanctuary with the people I love around me than deny it and treat it like any other night.'

He glanced down at Shalimar's small hand as the fingers intertwined with his own. He could feel it shaking, a marked difference between the hand and her facial expression. His grip tightened, an attempt at making her feel better, reassuring her that she was going to be okay, that they were all going to be okay, but he couldn't help the frown that appeared. It was hypocritical to tell her something he didn't truly believe himself.