Apologies to any readers still out there for the delay in posting these chapters, but a minor computer problem plus work and personal commitments (damn them) have been the cause - that and my habit of constantly re-writing.

It's far from perfect and I may actually re-write these chapters completely once I've posted the complete fic, but in the meantime I hope you enjoy.

By the way, in Chapter 4 there's a reference to 'The Rubber Ducky Pool Cleaning Service', which does actually exist. I needed a name and I checked online and, well, it just seemed to fit.

The entire fic is almost complete and will be posted very, very soon.

Chapter 3

For someone who by his own admission was not a 'morning person', four measly hours of sleep could never be considered anywhere near enough as far as Darien was concerned. But he somehow managed to rouse himself as soon as the digital alarm started its irritating beeping, kicking back the covers with a weary sigh and just lying there for a few minutes, staring at the bit of ceiling right above his bed. Finally, with a yawn and a long stretch he hauled himself up, scratching his butt as he traipsed bleary-eyed over to the kitchen for his morning caffeine fix, before hitting the shower.

When he emerged from the bathroom 20 minutes later he looked and felt a whole lot better. Dressing quickly in a favorite pair of jeans and white tee shirt, he gathered the few essential items he would need for the weekend and as part of his temporary escape plan, cramming most of it into a compact backpack. Then he pulled on a loose fitting red cotton shirt, Quicksilvered the backpack which he hoisted up over his shoulder, and exited his apartment a little after 10.00am, ready to face the day.

The security SUV was stationed right across the street in its regular spot and Darien nodded briefly to the two-man team de jour, not even sure if these were the same pair from earlier. It made little difference who they were actually, 'cause the suited, faceless clones were about to get a master class in the mundane.

He kept his pace casual, hands jammed out of habit into the pockets of his jeans and doing a good job of passing himself off as someone with a lot of spare time on his hands. Within the first couple of blocks he'd been in and out off a half dozen stores, including the local dry cleaners where he shared a few minutes of mutual flirtation with the pretty young assistant that ended with her scribbling her telephone number on the back of his receipt; and a small bakery a couple of doors along for some delicious hot-out-of- the- oven oatmeal cookies, which he ate as he walked.

Another 30 minutes or so was spent aimlessly wandering, sometimes just pausing to check out a store window display, all the while perfectly aware that one of the security mooks would be lurking in the background somewhere, shadowing him on foot. Darien's aim was to lull them into a false sense of normality…or with any luck bore them to death somewhere along the way.

The last and most important stop off was at his friendly neighborhood deli. The popular store was always busy, particularly at the weekend and today was definitely no exception. The place was heaving and Darien quickly maneuvered himself into the center of the large crowd of customers, all clamoring to get their weekend provisions.

The security foot soldier was nothing if not predictable as he appeared in the open doorway, concern etched all over his face as he scanned the crowd for the wayward I-Man and Darien grinned amiably, giving a small wave for good measure as the man finally spotted him. Their track record in tailing him was pathetic, and he knew that none of them relished the prospect of having to report back that they'd lost Fawkes…again! But the problem was they usually made it so damned easy, which was why Darien took every opportunity to slip the leash, more often than not just for the sheer hell of it and to make a point to the Fat Man and his mysterious 'superiors' that he, well…could..

As soon as the security goon had backed off, probably to report to his partner in the SUV now parked curbside, that Fawkes was just buying his groceries - nothing out of the ordinary - Darien extricated himself from the rest of the crowd and headed quickly to the back of the store, down a narrow passageway with a kitchen on one side and a storeroom on the other, to the door which he knew led to the alley that ran behind all of the buildings on this block..

Checking to make sure he wasn't being watched, Darien closed his eyes and steadied his breathing, and an instant later the familiar and oddly comforting chill of the Quicksilver enveloped his entire body, which shimmered momentarily before fading completely from sight. If anyone had come upon the scene at that particular moment, all they would have witnessed is the door opening and closing as if by itself. Once outside, Darien's invisible form scanned the long alleyway spotting exactly what he needed almost straight away, about two thirds of the way along on the opposite side

The short Oriental chef lounged across the open doorway of the restaurant, enjoying a smoke before he had to start preparing for the lunchtime rush. But mostly he'd come outside to escape his wife's incessant nagging. Even now he could hear her high-pitched accusatory tone above the clatter of pots and pans from the kitchen beyond, and he rolled his eyes as he snapped back an irritable response in Mandarin before switching to heavily-accented English.

"Yeah. Yeah I'm comin'. What's a man gotta do to have 5 minutes peace and quiet around here, huh!" Actually he had no intention of rushing and eased himself back against the doorframe, taking another long draw on his cigarette with a contented sigh.

"Gimme that,." a disembodied voice growled, as the cigarette was suddenly snatched from his fingers by some unseen entity. "Don't you know these things are bad for you, little buddy?"

"What's that, who's there?" He jumped, almost losing his footing as he spun practically a full circle searching the empty space . His eyes widening in shock as he caught a low throaty chuckle, just as an icy 'something' brushed his face and his white chef's hat was plucked from his head by the invisible tormenter. The hat dangled in mid air before it started to move in bizarre swirling patterns around his head with an accompanying, "Wooo, woohoo," added for effect. A second or two later the hat flew upwards in a long arc across the other side of the alleyway, finally settling atop a dumpster.

"Fetch!" Came the voice so close to the chef's ear that he swore he could feel hot breath on his cheek even though no-one was there. He backed out of the alley in panic slowly at first and then turning at a dead run, babbling in Mandarin and swatting the area around him to ward off what he was now convinced had to be an evil spirit.

With the human obstruction blocking his escape route now effectively removed, the still invisible Darien entered into the kitchen, passing right on through to the restaurant itself beyond a set of swing doors and then to the main exit which brought him out on the street running parallel to the deli. There was no time to lose now, it was just a matter of time before his minders realized he had gone and started scouring the block for him.

Using the canopied and shadowed entrance to the restaurant as his cover, he let the Quicksilver flake from his body and moved quickly down the street.

Someone up there definitely liked him today he decided as soon as he spotted the cab on the corner of the block, just about to deposit its elderly female passenger and her very ugly little dog onto the sidewalk. Darien rushed forward offering a hand to gently help her the rest of the way out, with a winning smile that had her blushing like a schoolgirl.

A moment later Darien was hunched down as far as could go in the back of the cab as it pulled back out into the late morning traffic, on his way to the rendezvous with Frankie.

He made good time out to Pacific Beach where Frankie was already waiting for him outside the motel. Then it was just a matter of checking them in as a couple using one of the fake ID's left over from his less than law biding past, which he'd held onto it mostly for old -times sakes…and emergencies. He'd also brought along a wad of cash from his 'rainy day stash' - about $1,500 - which he figured would be enough to cover their expenses over the weekend.

Hobbes knew all about his hidden booty, of course, even the location of his partner's secret hidey-hole built into the back of the closet in his apartment, and Darien knew that he knew, but with any luck the seasoned agent's uncanny inbuilt 'Fawkes Alarm' hadn't been triggered and he would just assume that Darien had taken off for a dirty weekend with the little honey from the bar. Bobby would give him hell for it on Monday though, Darien was certain of that, but it would be worth it to help Frankie.

The fake documents and cash were also used to rent them the car they drove to La Jolla, to spend the rest of the afternoon scouting the area around Frankie's old family home, with Darien pressing her for as much information as she could recall about the security system, and roughly how many staff would be on duty over the weekend.

Afterwards they took a leisurely drive back, stopping off for dinner in a small seafood restaurant where they were shown to a table on the outside terrace with sweeping views of the ocean.

The fact that they were totally at ease and relaxed in each others company didn't really surprise Darien. He'd always felt comfortable with Frankie; she'd never been judgmental or tried to change him like most of the other women in his life, and though a strong physical attraction was what had first brought them together back then, their relationship had been heading for something much deeper by the time brother Dominic appeared on the scene to spoil things.

Now as the last rays of sunlight disappeared below the horizon, he stared at the woman seated across the table from him, the flickering glow from the candle in the center of their table giving her lovely face an ethereal quality that was truly breathtaking. With her hair hanging lose the way he'd always liked it, and the pink cotton dress cut to perfectly accentuate her stunning figure, Darien knew he'd been the envy of practically every male in the restaurant as they'd made their way hand in hand to their table.

Their meal over, they were just relaxing over a glass of red wine when music started to play softly in the background. Darien chuckled the moment he recognized the opening bars to the Beatles' 'Something'. "These guys seem to be following us around. Must be an omen or somethin'." He gestured enquiringly towards the small section of terrace that doubled as a dance floor "Uh, you wanna…?"

The moment she realized that he wasn't goofing around, Frankie almost coyly took Darien's outstretched hand and allowed him to lead her over to where a handful of couples were already dancing. A tremor ran through her entire body as he suddenly pulled her in close, one hand pressing firmly into the small of her back and the other wrapping around hers as they started to move to the music. She laid her head against his shoulder, closing her eyes and losing herself to the feel of his body against hers and his smell, his touch, wanting to hold onto this moment for as long as possible.

When Frankie roused herself from her almost dreamlike state some time later, the music had changed tempo and Darien was now grinning down at her impishly, rolling his eyes in the direction of a group of diners who were openly staring at the attractive young couple. Leaning in close to whisper, his breath hot against the side of her face. "I think we've got ourselves an audience."

"Well, maybe we should give them something to really stare at, huh?" she whispered conspiratorially.

"My pleasure, ma'am," he mumbled as he dipped his head down a little more so that his lips could meet Frankie's. By the time they drew back from each other, their surroundings and their audience had become an irrelevance. Darien pushed a strand of hair from her face, letting the back of his hand trail over her cheek.

"Let's get the check and get out of here."

They drove back to their motel almost in silence, both of them lost in their own thoughts. Darien was determined not to let either of them rush into anything, for reasons that he couldn't tell Frankie - and he really didn't want to have to lie to her if he could help it.

It was bound to get complicated, like just about everything else in his life over the last couple of years.. Sure there had been a few women since Casey O'Claire, though not many and some casual sex, but not much, but just lately he'd virtually ruled himself out of forming any kind of lasting or meaningful relationship. An ordinary life for someone who was classified as top secret and carrying 17 million dollars worth of bio-synthetic technology around in his head seemed like an impossible dream.

Once they were back in their room Frankie headed straight for the shower, leaving Darien to kick off his boots and lay back on the bed, grabbing the TV remote and scanning the cable channels for something decent to watch. He needed a distraction to take his mind off of Frankie…in the shower, imagining the water flowing down through her long dark main of hair and over her slender body with those pert little…

"Aw crap."

Quickly shifting position and grabbed for a pillow to place across his groin to conceal the evidence of his rising desire, silently praying that Frankie wouldn't come back before he could exert a little…control. After a few minutes of this he decided he needed to go outside for some air, rising from the bed quickly and that's when the vertigo hit, taking Darien to his knees as the room rotated violently around him.

"Whoa!" Was all he managed before another wave of dizziness and nausea sent him crashing the rest of the way to the floor, his head impacting with the edge of the nightstand knocking him out cold.

And that's how Frankie found him when she walked back into the room 10 minutes later.

Something cool and really, really nice was touching his forehead and a voice was calling to him, its tone gentle and vaguely familiar. Darien was trying his best to crawl upwards out of the foggy realms of unconsciousness but it wasn't easy, even though the woman's voice was saying his name again and he wanted to do it for her.

Frankie knelt on the floor with Darien's head resting in her lap and ran the dampened cloth across his face, dabbing carefully at the nasty gash on his right temple. He stirred and mumbled, but still didn't open his eyes.

"Come on baby, come back to me," she urged and was rewarded, finally, with a low groan just before those brown eyes blinked open.

"Claire?" He rasped, trying to focus on the figure huddled over him.

"Okay Fawkes, you're so gonna have to explain the Claire bit to me later," Frankie grunted as she struggled to pull Darien into a sitting position, propping him up so that his back rested against the side of the bed. The cut above his eye was already starting to swell dramatically, and Darien raised trembling fingers to tentatively to probe at the sore and pulsating mass that was his head.

"Wha…what happened?" he slurred.

Frankie gently batted his hand away and laid the cool compress over his forehead.

"Well angel, you either passed out, or else it's the best scam anyone's ever pulled to avoid sleeping with me."

Darien started to laugh until another violent spasm had him lurching forward and practically throwing himself into the bathroom, just in time for his entire evening meal to make a spectacular re-appearance.

With a final 'Bleaaagh" he rolled away from the toilet bowl and stared pathetically up at Frankie, who now stood in the doorway watching him anxiously.

"Maybe we should call a doctor …" she started, as Darien began to haul himself upright using the wash basin, a hand held to his badly cramping stomach.

He shook his head emphatically as he stumbled his way past her, pitching face down onto the bed. "No doctor. Must've had some bad lobster or somethin'. Just need sleep. Be okay in the mornin'…" His words trailed off into an incomprehensible mumble as his eyes drooped shut, practically as soon as his head touched the pillows. Frankie wasn't at all convinced by his assurance though, intuition telling her there was something going on here that he wasn't telling.

She gave Darien a minute or two to settle before easing onto the bed beside him, and he shifted and turned towards her, his arm looping around her waist as his long lean body practically draped itself over hers. His head settled on her chest, and he gave a deep contented sigh from somewhere deep in his sleep as Frankie's fingers began to comb gently through the soft strands of his hair.

Frankie awoke to find sunlight filtering in through a narrow gap in the curtains, and the warm body she'd been comfortably entangled with for most of the night…gone.

She sat up with a start and quickly scanned the room before her eyes darted warily to the half-opened bathroom door; some part of her convinced that Darien was in there, sprawled unconscious …or worse…on the tiled floor. Perhaps he'd even called out for help and she'd slept right on through, oblivious to his suffering just a few feet away. With that and other panicked thought running through her mind she pushed back the covers ready to go check, when the door to their room opened and Darien entered arms laden with a large paper bag, a wide grin on his face when he saw her.

"Mornin'."

He'd obviously been up and about long enough to shower and dress, and apart from the angry bruising over his eye he didn't seem to be suffering any after-effects from the episode of the night before. Frankie didn't know whether to throw her arms around his neck in relief, or to pound his head for scaring her like that. She settled instead for returning his smile thinly as she settled herself back onto the bed, watching as Darien began to unload the contents of the bag.

"Thought you might appreciate breakfast in bed," he advised too casually as far as she was concerned. "Got us some coffee and some great pastries. Couldn't remember what you liked so I just got a selection…"

That was it, she'd had enough. "What the hell's going on Darien?" She asked sharply, swatting away the Styrofoam coffee cup he tentatively held out for her.

His face was the picture of injured innocence, using those brown eyes of his to startling effect.. "Nothin's going on baby. I just had a couple of errands to run and didn't see the point in waking you." A mischievous smile spread slowly over his face as he dropped down onto the edge of the bed, his fingers brushing over the curve of her breasts beneath the small white tee shirt that doubled as her nightwear. " Ya know, I forgot how cute you look when you're asleep."

Fighting not to over react to his laid-back attitude, Frankie slapped his hand away. "Cut the crap Fawkes. Are you going to tell me what that was last night?"

Unable to meet her intense and questioning gaze at that precise moment, Darien stared briefly into the middle distance. "It was nothin'," he tried cautiously. "Just some bad seafood I guess. I'm good now, honest." Making a little sign of the cross over his heart for good measure

"You know for a thief you always were a terrible liar."

"Ex thief," he countered glibly, earning himself an exasperated. look from her that she could have borrowed straight from his Keeper.

"Has it got anything to do with that scar on the back of your head?" Frankie asked suddenly, and was rewarded by a look of stunned shock from Darien whose hand shot almost protectively to his neck .

"How…how'd you know about….?" he gulped out the question.

Frankie sidled up to him, her earlier crankiness just a front for the concern she felt. "You always did like to be stroked." Her hand reached out to cup his chin gently.

"And I've just spent practically the entire night with your face buried in my chest. - not that I'm complaining." Her tone was softer now. ""Are you sick, baby?"

Darien took a deep breath, knowing he needed to tell her something. ""I…I had some surgery," he stuttered out, raising a calming hand quickly to allay the look of alarm on her lovely face "But it's not what you think. Let's just say it was my 'get out of jail free card' and leave at that, huh."

Surgery! What kind of sick bastard would force someone, particularly someone like Darien, to make that sort of deal? If she was going to get him to open up to her and tell her more she knew that she'd need to probe carefully.

"Oh I get it," she said in attempt to alleviate some of the tension. "It's one of those 'you would tell me but then you'd have to kill me' things."

"It's no freakin' joke." Darien snapped as he pulled away from her suddenly, moving to stand a few feet away from the bed to where he could brood more effectively. "What the hell does it matter. It's done okay."

"Of course it matters if it's making you sick. And why are you angry with me?" She couldn't stop her own voice rising to counter the sharpness in his tone.

Another long suffering sigh. "For crying out loud, I'm not angry with you and I'm not sick. There's been a lot happening lately, and I guess I'm just a little tired. Nothing that my Keep…my doctor can't fix with a vitamin shot or somethin'."

Okay, maybe he hadn't meant to say that. He realized immediately that there was no way Frankie would let it drop now that he'd stupidly revealed he was in the care of some 'doctor' - and she sure didn't disappoint.

"You're seeing a doctor?" Her barely whispered words were a stark contrast from the raised voices of a few minutes before. Darien sank down wearily onto the edge of the bed running a hand across his face and then through his hair, and after a second or two he felt Frankie ease in beside him.

"Frankie, I really don't want to lie to you, and that's what I'd have to do if you don't let it drop, 'kay?" Darien looked to her for some form of understanding before continuing. "If I told you anything about my life now…well, let's just say it could get you into a whole lot of trouble."

He was just beginning to think that maybe she wasn't going to respond, when she broke the silence "Alright, I'll let it go…for now," she stated finally, earning a tiny nod of relief from him. "But," she added quickly, before he had the chance to assume she'd drawn a line under it completely, "I want you to promise me that you'll see that doctor of yours first thing tomorrow and tell him…"

"Her," Darien cut in helpfully.

"Her," Frankie corrected, "about last night."

"Ya know, you're a lot bossier than I remember."

"Darien!" The scolding tone in her voice didn't match the look of genuine concern in her eyes.

"Okay, I promise, alright" he responded with a suitably disarming grin, knowing that he could at least honor part of the deal, as he was due to report to his Keeper in the morning for a routine poking and prodding session. Though whether he actually decided to tell Claire about how generally crappy he'd been feeling of late…well, the jury was still out on that one, particularly as that little revelation would more than likely land him an overnighter in Lab 3, along with more of the loathsome tests, and he wanted to avoid that at all costs - at least for the moment.

"Fawkes, are you listening to me?" Frankie's hard elbow connected painfully with his mid section, pulling his focus back to the here and now. "I said that I'll find some other way to get to the disk if you're not feeling well enough…"

"Nuh, uh. I wanna do this for you," he stated insistently. "'Sides," he pulled Frankie to her feet and tugged her over to the window, "I've already figured my way onto your old homestead without spooking the kin." Grinning now he motioned towards the small blue transit van parked outside, the garish cartoon character logo emblazoned on the side announcing that it belonged to: 'The Rubber Ducky Pool Cleaning Service'..

Frankie stared in amazement. When Darien had said he'd had a couple of errands to run earlier, she'd never considered for a moment that he'd been out making preparations. She turned back to tell him just that, but instead burst into a fit of giggles when she saw that he was now proudly wearing a blue baseball cap adorned with the 'Rubber Ducky' logo.

"The Pool Man is practically invisible," he stated with an ironic smile, "which is exactly what I need to be if I'm gonna pull this off during broad daylight."

"But where'd it all come from?" she asked incredulously, still giggling.

"Oh, just something I spotted when we did our little drive past yesterday. Looked up the company address in the 'yellow pages' and then took myself along to their depot this morning and…uh… 'loaned' some of their gear. I figured that as Sunday is probably a slow day in the pool cleaning biz, we should be able to get this little lot back to them before they even realize it's missing.

She just stared at him in a mix of awe and amusement for another few minutes, before coming to a decision of her own.

"Okay, if you're still willing to go through with this…for me, then I'll let you do it on one condition." Without warning Frankie spun Darien around and with a hard shove pushed him backwards onto the bed, straddling him before he even had a chance to protest - not that he would have - he actually liked his current prone position just fine. "And the condition is that we finish what we probably would have started last night…if you hadn't taken a dive."

Man, that was so okay with him!

Frankie leaned in for a deep lingering kiss, eliciting a pathetic little moan from Darien as she pulled away abruptly, leaving him dazed and aching for more. Then her fingers began to slowly trace across the buttons on his jeans, trailing upwards across his chest, over his mouth and nose and then brushing along the edge of the baseball cap, a playful little smile on her face the entire time.

"Let's keep the hat," she breathed. "There's something kinda sexy about a man in uniform."

TBC