Nottingham made several discreet phone calls from the first pay phone he passed on his way to the city building. He had precious little time to get everything accomplished, which meant several people would be earning their paychecks tonight.

The F.B.I probably thought they were running a low profile operation, but Nottingham's network had found them two days after he had sent them to look. Finding their safe houses tonight shouldn't be too hard, since his people had a good starting point. With any luck, Ian would get a call divulging the location of the two captains in the next few hours.

Ian had built a network of highly specialized personnel over the years, for just such occasions. These were his people alone; he recruited them and paid them out of his own funds. The web of informants and agents that he had created allowed him to achieve the impossible on a regular basis.

If Irons knew about the team, he had never given any indication, but Nottingham rather thought he hadn't. Kenneth liked to control knowledge, giving it out in dribbles and drabs when he must, hoarding facts until he could use them for the best possible effect. The idea that there was a source of information that he did not edit first would have driven Irons crazy.

While Nottingham hated to do anything that would displease the older man, he needed unaltered data. If there was one thing he had learned during his time with the military, it was never go into a situation without reliable intelligence. Partial reports always ended up costing extra mission time, injuries, lost objectives, or all three and worse.

In the meantime, he would see just how much rope Orlinsky would use to hang himself, and the mayor. Ian settled in to his habitual rooftop perch and put in an ear bud so he could listen.

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It had been four hours since Sara had left Jake in the hospital. She'd been in the middle of blistering his ears when he started snoring. Seeing that she was wasting her breath, Pezzini decided to wait until the drugs had worked out of her partner's system so he would get the full effect of her lecture. She'd said a curt goodnight to Agent Myers, whose blank face did not quite mask the twinkle of mirth in his eyes. He'd found the whole situation terribly amusing, she could tell.

Sara sighed and ran a finger over the dull metal of the Witchblade. It wasn't Myer's attitude or McCarty's somnolence keeping her from sleeping, although it made for a nice distraction, it was fear that she wouldn't wake up again.

This was the first time since Ceto had possessed her that she was home alone at night. Gabriel had taken watch the last time she had slept, even though she had returned the Witchblade to her wrist. True, nothing had happened, but Sara couldn't shake the fear that being alone meant that the bitch would ambush her in her sleep.

"Fear is the mind killer, my young Padawan." Danny's voice broke into her musings.

"Are you allowed to mix your movie quotes? Isn't that against the Cryptic Ghost Code?" Sara grumbled and pulled the pillow over her face.

"Nah. As long as I never give you a straight answer to the important questions, it's all good." Amusement laced his response.

"Do you have any idea how much that rule sucks?" Pez flung the pillow she'd been holding over her head in the direction of her partner's voice.

"You should try it from this side. I see you heading for disaster after disaster, and the only thing I can do is give you hints. It's like watching a toddler at the top of a flight of stairs."

"Are you calling me a baby?" Sara's ignored the 'disaster after disaster' part. She didn't want to know how many near-misses she'd had.

"If the booties fit…" Danny was quick to reply.

Sara sat up, looking around the loft for the source of her irritation. Seeing nothing, Pez narrowed her eyes and growled, "Daniel Woo, come out here this instant."

"Ooohh, aren't we grumpy this morning?" A Danny-shaped shadow separated from the pool of darkness in the corner nearest the window. "I'd ask if you got up on the wrong side of the bed, but I can see the answer for myself."

"I've got a lot on my mind." Pezzini grumbled at the indistinct shape.

"So what's keeping you up, the bitch, the bracelet, or the boyfriend?" Danny stepped into the moonlight.

"He's not my boyfriend," Sara protested.

"Bullshit." Danny cut the objection off.

"We've gone out a few times, that's all. It doesn't give me any claims." Sara sighed.

"Denial, clearly not just a river in Egypt," Danny rolled his eyes. "Come on Pez. Nottingham worships the ground you walk on."

"He does not." Even as she said it, Sara felt a thrill. Did Ian really?

"Oh yes he does. Hell, he even cooked for you. Trust me; if a guy cooks for you, he's serious." Danny shook his head, wondering why such an intelligent detective couldn't see the clues right in front of her.

"Serious enough to quit working for Irons? Because that's the biggest hold-up to this relationship," Sara paused and sucked in a deep breath. "I know this will scare you, but I've actually been thinking about the future."

Danny quirked his lips up in that almost-smile of his, "That's scary all right. Who are you, and what did you do with the real Pez?"

"She skipped town, said something about going to the bike rally in Sturgis." Sara tried to keep a straight face and failed.

The two shared a conspiratorial grin before Danny sobered and asked, "So what really made you start looking before you leap?"

"Funny what too much free time and nothing but Jerry Springer on the TV will do for you." Sara drew her legs up and wrapped her arms around them. "I thought about what you'd said to me about living. I thought about it a lot."

"What did you decide?" Danny went still, the answer was very important.

"That I want to live instead of just exist. I want Ian to be a part of that life, but no matter how I played the scenarios out in my head, I kept stonewalling on Irons. He will never be able to accept me having a relationship with anyone, much less someone he considers a cross between a rottweiler and a servant." Pez curled in tighter around her legs, chin resting on her knees.

"Don't forget son. Irons did raise him." Danny felt obligated to point out.

"Fuck." Sara shifted slightly so she could beat her forehead against her knees. "That's" thump "Just" thump "Fucking" thump "Perfect."

His hands hovered over her shoulder, wanting to give more than verbal support, "Calm down Pez. Dutiful sons always rebel when in love. It's a tradition."

Sara looked up, eyes promising dire suffering if only she could get her hands on him. "If that was your idea of encouraging, you can shut up."

"I'm hurt, truly. Here I am, just trying to help, and I get dumped on." Danny feigned wounded innocence.

Pez wasn't buying it. "If you were really here to help you would tell me about Ceto instead of giving me shit about my love life."

"But talking about her isn't as much fun." Danny stuck his lower lip out in a pout.

"Tough. I'm worried about her coming after me again."

"You should be. Ceto wants that bracelet, and as weak as you both still are, now is the best chance she'll ever have of getting it." Danny paused to let his warning sink in. "The good news is, now that you're wearing the Witchblade again, you're not open to possession."

"So what's the bad news?" Sara knew there would be some. That was just the way her luck ran.

Danny sat on the edge of the bed, regretting once again that he could not touch Sara to offer her comfort. "She knows your physical location. It makes it easier for her to use avatars or other material intermediaries to get to you."

"So Ceto can't invade my mind, but she can hire a bunch of thugs break into my apartment?"

"Exactly," Danny nodded, glad she'd gotten it. "Although Ceto is more likely to offer a reward of power than money, and it will probably be some crackpot fringe group. I'd start making nice with Bunko if I were you."

"Yeah, I can see what you mean. They'd be the first to know if something was stirring up the weirdos." Sara had planned to talk to them anyway, since she was going to have to make some show of digging around the closed Brian Reilly case to keep McCarty from realizing she'd been trying to distract him from Joe.

"Now that you know that, think you can sleep?" Danny asked.

"Hell, I don't know. Maybe," Sara sighed.

"Would you like me to tell you a story?" Danny grinned suddenly.

Sara arched a brow, "I don't think I'm as bad off as that, thank you."

"Oh come on Pez, I tell great stories. Now which one should I tell?" Danny trailed off as if deep in thought, and then smirked, "Once upon a time there was a grouchy princess, who was cranky because she didn't get enough sleep. All her subjects walked in fear of the princess' bad temper."

"Cute Danny, really cute," Sara cut him off before he could go any further. Then, to her surprise, she gave a huge yawn.

"What did I tell you?" Danny's smirk blossomed into a smile that would have done the Cheshire Cat proud, and like the legendary cat, it was the last thing of him she saw. Danny faded into the night, his smile nothing but the gleam of the streetlamp through her window. His voice was soft in her ear, "Works every time."

Surrendering to the inevitable, Sara settled back onto the mattress and closed her eyes.