Peace

By: Cheryl W.

Disclaimer: I don't own The League of the Extraordinary Gentlemen or anything in conjunction with LXG nor am I making a profit from this story. No copyright infringement is intended. Sadly, I do not own Tom Sawyer either.

Author's notes: In a desperate effort to finally get this chapter posted, I'm going to omit my usual reply to reviewers. I hate to do it because you guys are the heart of why I take the effort to post! So please accept my apologies and heartfelt thanks to my wonderful reviewers: Sawyer Fan, LXGFanGirl, Loopey-Laura, q1120790, kingleby, ten mara, julia, amanda hope, and dralx

And a special thank you to Someone Reading for encouraging me to get this chapter written. Without your wonderful support and prodding this chapter would still be MIA. Also I want to offer lookwaya618 (aka kidblink182) a special thank you for that nudging, encouraging 2nd review that you tricked the system to submit. Your efforts are much appreciated.

Now on with the show!

Chapter 13

Stepping onto the conning tower, Quatermain found his quarry, just as he knew he would…ill clad for the cold yet too reckless to care. Gripping the coat in his hand that matched the one he already wore, Allan shook his head in disbelief and exasperation at the sight of Tom Sawyer, sans a coat, leaning on the railing, his eyes closed and a smile on his face as if it were the sun hitting his face instead of a crippling artic breeze. "Put on this bloody coat before you're frozen through," Allan gruffly commanded, tossing the white fur lined coat to the younger man.

Catching the coat with ease, Sawyer simply smirked rebelliously at the older man, knowing it would evoke a reaction from Quatermain. True to prediction, the hunter speared him with a challenging glare, sending a warm feeling into Tom's heart. With a quirky smile, Sawyer shrugged into the contours of the coat with slow deliberation, making no move to do up the buttons. Resuming his position, he leaned once again on the railing, his eyes soaking up the white frozen landscape of Mongolia.

Leaning his back against the railing, Allan's gaze rested on Tom, the Mongolia tundra no competition for his attention. An old tiger could be taught new tricks. He could learn to focus on what mattered most in life…and it sure wasn't the scenery, or the hunt or even the quarry. Harry's death had taught him that…and yet he had still almost forgotten that lesson…until this moment, until the future lay ahead, dangerous, unpredictable and without mercy. Allan swallowed hard, Tom looked so young, so vulnerable, his face hardly sporting more color than the white fur that rested against his face. 'How can I let him walk into the battle ahead? The odds so badly against us that I can't stomach to do a calculation? If harm should come to him…' ruthlessly he broke off that thought. He couldn't bear to have another son lost. Not again. Opening his mouth, Allan intended to expose his feelings for the boy and beg for Sawyer's absence from the attack but Sawyer's quiet words filled the silence first.

"Huck loved the cold," Tom announced, his eyes never wavering from the snow covered terrain. "When the Mississippi river would freeze over, Huck was the first one out there, trying to break Billy Wartan's sliding record." With a smirk, Tom explained, "See Billy nearly slid across the whole river at Thomason's bend."

Tom's reminiscing scattered Allan's proposed plea to the four winds as the adventurer was hit with the truth. This was as much Tom's battle as it was his…maybe more. Though he had begun to perceive Sawyer as his son, and as such, someone who needed his protection, in truth the American was an agent with a mission to complete, a man with a wrong to right, a friend with an oath to uphold.

Allan barely heard Tom's next words, their quiet hurt almost stolen on the wind.

"Huck woulda loved seeing this."

Gently Quatermain advised, "Then enjoy it for the both of you," his words earning him a sharp look from his companion. With some hesitation, the elder man clarified, "Memories of loved ones should bring us joy…even when those we love are gone. The blessing of memories is that we get to keep a part of that person in our soul, forever."

Contemplation sparked in Sawyer's eyes before a dangerous smile turned up his lips. "Well, then let's hit the snow," he announced, a gleam of a reckoning yet to be unleashed in his eyes.

The look ignited a new level of fear within Quatermain, causing his arm to shoot out and clutch tightly to Sawyer's forearm. His breath billowing white clouds, Allan implored, "Promise to be careful," his tone lacking the quality of strength one expected from the great white hunter but drowning in the gut wrenching fear of a father terrified that he was addressing his son for the last time.

Touched instead of frustrated by Allan's all too obvious concern, Sawyer obediently swore, trying hard to keep the smirk off his features, "I promise to be as careful as I can be in a fortress filled with invisible men, vampires, Hydes and a hundred bad guys who are able to deflect bullets off their armor,"

"Well, that certainly eases my mind," Quatermain sarcastically muttered, trapping the younger man's head in a headlock even as Sawyer's laughter vibrated in the wind as the agent replied, "I thought it would."

Releasing the American from the headlock, Allan playfully pushed Sawyer toward the door, "Come on Mr. Smart Aleck. Let's go find some bad guys before I decide that putting my boot up your butt like you deserve would be more rewarding."

"Capital punishment is being phased out you know," Sawyer taunted with a look over his shoulder.

"Not in Europe it isn't," Allan countered, a gleam in his eye. "Here we still have the right to chastise our children as they deserve."

"I knew you foreigners were all sadists," Tom shot back, a twinkle in his eyes as he dashed for the door and slid down the ladder like a professional firefighter before Allan could take up pursuit.

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Snow fell as the league of gentlemen trekked across the barren land of Mongolia, soft and light and callously cold.

"Bloody cold place for a hide away," Jekyll criticized as he pulled his white parka tighter to him.

Ahead of him, Sawyer quipped, "Yeah, well, my travel agent said Mongolia would practically be tropical this time of year. Maybe M went to the same travel agent I did." Increasing his stride, the American drew abreast to Mina, "You doing OK?" his eyes searching her porcelain features for what she wouldn't say.

"I'm sorry," she stated, shooting a speculative glance to Sawyer as she continued, "for not realizing Dorian's true motives. I should have remembered who he was…not what I wanted him to be."

"He fooled the lot of us," Tom easily acknowledged with a shrug of his shoulders, hoping to assuage her guilt even as his own clung to him.

"You never trusted him," she speculated, hoping to draw out an explanation.

But Sawyer was used to such interrogative methods. With a deadly smile he replied, "yeah, well, I don't trust anybody. It's a prerequisite in my profession."

"Ah…"Mina drew out with a lightness in her eyes that had been missing, "so you're saying that you don't trust me either."

A devilishly handsome smile lit up Sawyer's face, "Oh, I never trust a beautiful woman…a broken heart's an injury I'm not willing to suffer…even for God and country."

"Oh, I don't know. I think I could make it worth your while," Mina's eyes promising pleasures that Tom Sawyer had been sorely missing.

"I bet you could," Tom admitted charmingly before he winked and picked up his pace to come even with their fearless leader. "So are we there yet?" he quirked, earning him a glare from Quatermain.

"She's dangerous, you know?" Allan murmured, his words only reaching Sawyer, even as his eyes did not leave their intent inspection of the white expansion ahead of them.

"Really?" Tom sarcastically drawled. "You know I'd never have come up with that on my own."

Turning his look upon Tom, Allan gently began "All I'm saying is …"

"Watch my back…and my neck…and every other vein supporting blood. Hey, I'm not too far gone that I forget about self preservation," Tom reassured, his tone telling the elder man that his warning was welcome even if it was basically not necessary.

"Self preservation?" Allan mocked, his eyebrow raised as he shot a reprimanding look to his young companion. "I didn't think you knew the meaning, what with your death defying feats, reckless antics and penchant to hide your injuries."

"All a deception to impress you. I'm quite a cowardly recluse at heart," Tom parried back.

Allan snorted, "Cowardly recluse my behind!" causing Sawyer to burst into laughter. A moment later, Allan's own laughter mixed with the younger man's. "If all Americans are as stubborn as you are, no wonder we lost the bloody war."

Slinging his arm over Allan's shoulders, Tom conspiringly drew the older man closer and spoke quietly in his ear, "I could tell you why we really beat you..but then I'd have to kill you."

Instead of dismissing Sawyer's jest, Allan chose to acknowledge the percent of truth in the young spy's threat. "I don't need to know that bloody badly," he blustered, his serious reply arousing a surprised look from the American. "What? I know you're no pussy cat, Secret Service Agent Sawyer, no matter how much boyish charm you can unleash."

Crazy as it was, that was one of the best compliments a seasoned man of adventure such as Allan Quatermain could offer to the young spy. It instilled some confidence in Sawyer that had started to leak away under the duress of this particular mission. Confidence that he sorely needed as the final confrontation with M loomed ahead.

Adopting a light tone, he drawled, "I knew you'd see things my way," gave Quatermain's shoulder a companionable squeeze before releasing him. "Now, explain this tea and crumpets custom you have? It's actually about being able to drink some brandy in the middle of the day, isn't it?" Tom grilled as they trudged forward in the unrelenting weather.

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Waiting, Tom Sawyer did it poorly. No matter that he had been trained by the best in the business to wait out the ending of time if that's what it took to entrap the bad guys in the world. Outwardly he seemed unaware of the long hours ticking by a century a second as they huddled in the cave, awaiting Skinner's arrival. But inwardly, inwardly dwelt the ten year old boy who squirmed in his church pew, unleashed frogs in the aisles and tied girl's pig tales into knots.

After an hour huddled in the cave's entrance, even conversation had dwindled into silence.

Furtively, Tom's gaze would flicker to the dark depths of the cave and he would fight off the shiver of fear that made his every breath a struggle. Of all the places for this rendezvous, why did it have to be a cave! Wasn't there enough tension humming through his body without adding his irrational fear of caves!

He nearly leapt to his feet as a hand clamped down on his shoulder. It did his heart no good when he snapped his head up to find that there was no one standing by his side.

"Easy, pup, easy. It's just your old invisible pal, Skinner," Skinner's rough British voice placated as Sawyer felt the departure of the hand on his shoulder.

With relief, Tom watched a white coat seemingly levitate in the air before it was put on a body yet unseen. Then a well known canister floated out of the pocket and white paint was liberally applied to skin that moments ago was seemingly non existent. "You all seem to have lost your sense of humor during my absence," the now visible man quirked, smiling down at the young American who leaned against the cave wall.

"Well I guess you can see right through us," Sawyer quirked, hoping to cover up his rattled nerves.

"Great now the bloody invisible jokes begin," Skinner drawled but there was appreciative humor in his tone as he directed a smile at the youngest member of the league.

Shooting a worried glance at Sawyer that told the younger man his uneasiness had not gone unnoticed by the hunter, Quatermain came to stand in front of their once mistrusted league member. "Skinner, I didn't know you were such a barefaced liar," he charged, causing tension to choke the occupants in the cave before he allowed his smile to show. "All that time pretending that you weren't a hero."

"Truly, you're more than the eye can see," Tom quipped, a smirk on his lips as he looked up at the thief who he had missed among their numbers.

"Ha..ha," Skinner retorted, "Move over and let the frozen man feel some heat," he said as he claimed a seat beside Sawyer, reaching his now gloved hands out to the fire. Realizing that he had the rapt attention of the cave's occupants, he set about relaying his information about M's "summer retreat", as Sawyer had dubbed it. With his invaluable knowledge of the fortress and it's operation, it didn't take long to hammer out the plan of attack for the next day. Skinner was not surprised when Quatermain assigned himself the task of confronting M any more than he was shocked that the hunter paired himself with Sawyer. 'I knew the pup would get to the old boy,' Skinner's smile visible via his white makeup. 'If those two were any more alike, we'd have to call Sawyer junior.'

With some quiet levity that strove to mask the apprehension for the morrow, supper was consumed. Then the gathered invasion force bedded down for the night, dousing out the fire so their presence would remain veiled from M and casting the cave into black oblivion.

Tom's breath caught in his throat as the void seemed to squeeze the very air from his lungs. He remembered too vividly another cave, another pitch-blackness that clawed at his soul, another maze too intricate to navigate. And then there were the bats…and Injun Joe.

Surging from the ground he nearly stumbled over the other slumbering league members to get to the only diminutive source of light this night offered. His breaths came in gasps as he leaned against the cave's outside wall, the sliver of moonlight as lifesaving as his first breath of air after he nearly drown in the Mississippi.

"Are you alright?" came Skinner's voice.

Jerking his head to the right, Sawyer saw the invisible man, bearing his white makeup perched on the rock, rifle in hand. "Sorry, I didn't see you there," he breathed out before he corrected, "I didn't mean that literally just…"

"You didn't remember that someone would be out here," Skinner aided the obliviously shaken younger man.

"Yeah. I just needed a breath of fresh air," Tom tried to casually offer, standing more erect and taking in an oblivious deep breath.

"Cave's a mite stuffy I noticed," Skinner quietly offered. "Truth is, I'm actually glad for the company. Guard duty's not my forte. Too bloody boring."

"Yeah, I know what you mean," Tom agreed, coming over and claiming a spot beside Skinner on the rock. He drew his feet up on the rock and wrapped his arms around his legs, his eyes transfixed by the thumbnail of moon that offered him the light he so sorely needed.

Watching his companion, Skinner lightly joked, "So that's why you didn't volunteer for this miserable job."

Without looking away from the moon, Tom quietly replied, "I did volunteer."

"Ahh…" Skinner drawled as if it were all clear to him now.

Shooting a perplexed look to Skinner, Tom demanded, "Ahhhh. What's that mean?"
"It means you volunteered and Quatermain shot down the idea."

Tom stilled, uncertain how the man could have overheard his conversation with Quatermain when he wasn't 'invisible' anymore.

Seeing the question in the other man's gaze, Rodney smiled gently, "It ain't hard to figure that one out, pup. You look like hell."

"Hey, thanks," Tom growled, intending to get up but Skinner's gloved hand shot out and latched onto his arm.

"Don't go runnin' off cause I have the stomach to tell you the truth," Skinner requested, his tone more gentle than the words he used.

Warily, Sawyer eyed the other man, "I think the truth's something one should only use when lyin' isn't working."

Quiet laughter erupted from Skinner as he lightly pounded the spy's back. "Kid, I've missed you."

Concluding that he sat with a friend, Tom, abandoning his notion of 'runnin' off', smiled. "Guess I'm a mite better company than Dorian or M, huh?"

"You have no idea," Skinner drawled before a companionable silence fell on the two men for a few minutes.

"So how'd you know Gray was a traitor?" Sawyer inquired even as he wondered why he himself had not made that conclusion.

"I didn't." This reply gained Sawyer's full attention, causing Rodney Skinner to sigh. 'You should know better than to have a conversation with a spy where you want to keep some things unsaid,' he chastised himself before he meet the spy's questioning gaze. "All I knew was I didn't like the bloke, alright! Didn't like 'em and surely didn't trust 'em. And when it seemed mischief was about.."

"You fingered him as the culprit," Tom finished, almost displaying envy and guilt in his tone. "Damn why didn't I see his deception coming!"

"I had a 'feeling' but I didn't react quick enough to prevent him from sabotaging the Nautilus."

"What brought this feeling on? Why didn't you trust him?"

Rodney wanted to unleash a string of curses. This was actually the question he had been afraid the American would think to ask. Nervously he cleared his throat, "It wasn't much really." Shooting a assessing glance to Sawyer he knew he wasn't going to be left off the hook on this topic. "Alright. Alright! I heard him talking to you in your room, going through your things…threatening you."

Whatever clues for Dorian's deception Tom envisioned Skinner had based his mistrust on, it wasn't this. "You were there?" surprise and embarrassment in his tone.

Misinterpreting the tone, Skinner apologized. "I know! I should have broken things up between you two, hauled his pompous butt out of your room!"

"This was your basis for thinking Gray was the traitor?" the spy smirked, a light of tender appreciation in his eyes that the night masked from the invisible man.

"Yeah. Hey in my world judging people quick and correctly is the difference between making off with the loot and getting pinched," the thief defended.

"The difference in my world is life or death," Tom quietly acknowledged, angry all over again at having missed the signs that so pointedly unveiled Gray's true motives for joining the league.

"Hey don't blame yourself. All I had was the same feelings we all did…that Dorian was a pain in the backside. Thing is, I'm a little more equipped to stand at his side unnoticed while he goes about his business."

His mood lightened at the other man's words, Tom turned laughing eyes to Rodney, "Goes about his business!" he said mirth in his tone.

"Not that kinda of bloody business!" Skinner scoffed, ruffling Sawyer's hair good-naturedly as the American laughed. Seriousness coated Skinner's next words, "Sides, with you, Gray wasn't going to make a misstep. M had apparently already warned him about you."

Tom stilled at this news. "So M and Gray had a way of communicating even after Gray joined the league."

"Apparently. M also had some choice words about you after you saved Venice," his pride at the young spy's actions slipping into the thief's tone.

"Oh really," Tom drawled with a cocky smile. "Now that's the kinda of recognition I was looking for."

"Oh you had the old Fantom's attention way before you joined our little band," Skinner happily reported, unaware of the sadness linked with Sawyer's previous encounter with M. The stillness that settled over the younger man at his side told him that he had unknowingly struck a nerve.

"At the docks," Tom tightly concluded. "He remembered me from the docks."

"Remembered you?" Skinner scoffed, "He hired bloody assassins to track you down."

"And I go and spoil it by joining his party."

"That definitely put him out, not to mention he's out that money he paid the assassins in London."

"Maybe he'll take an IOU from me to cover his losses," Tom said, the dangerous glint in his eyes almost colder than the Mongolia night.

"If he has any survival instincts in his bones, he'll run like hell when he sees you," the invisible league member concluded.

"His running days are over," Tom swore malevolently, his pitiless tone easily reaching the ears of the man who leaned against the interior wall of the cave.

By nature Allan Quatermain was not an eavesdropper. Sure he had done it for Queen and Country but that temporary breach of honor had been pardoned under the necessity of national security. This venture into that reproachable action had no such holy intentions. The truth was, he desperately wanted to hear the exchange between the two men, to know what Tom would tell the thief but would not tell him.

The hunter's jaw had clenched as Skinner had reminisced about Dorian's 'visit' with Sawyer and the threat he had left behind. 'Why didn't Tom tell me this? I would have put bloody Gray in his place!' But moments later, his anger was washed away under an onslaught of cold fear at the mention of assassins being dispatched for Sawyer. 'If Sawyer had stayed in London, if I hadn't let him join the league…' Quatermain's head swam with what ifs and what could have beens, terrified to know the other outcomes that were possible. 'Safer with me then without me,' that had been his thought with Harry. 'As if taking my son into a bloody dangerous situation with me was better than letting him back in Africa to live his own life. As if I and I alone could protect his life from the fate that befalls every soul. What a fool I had been then…and now. Sawyer is not safer with me, no matter how much I strive to guard him against harm, I can't protect him. And the truth is, that's not even something he 'wants' from me. He's not a child to be sheltered, Quatermain. You know this. He's a spy on a mission. He needs someone to watch his back, he needs a colleague…not a father.'

But even as he drew that conclusion, Allan knew in his heart of hearts that it was too late to adopt that mind set. Sawyer had come to mean too much to him, had caused too many repressed paternal instincts to awaken. Tom may not be a child or even his child but somewhere along the hellish trek from London to Mongolia, Allan Quatermain, tough ex spy, hunter extraordinaire had been transformed into an overprotective, fretting father.

His own words came back to him, sharp and clear. '"This cannot be a hunt to the death, lad,"' leaving his own resolve unspoken. Now he voiced it quietly and menacingly, "Not for you, son, not for you. As for me…I'm going to make sure M meets his date with death. No longer will he be a threat to this world…or you."

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Inside M's fortress, the league members seemed little more than toy soldiers, ineffectual and small against the backdrop of the massive structure. As their eyes met in the abandoned hall, silence fell on the courageous members of the league of extraordinary gentlemen. The time was at hand, victory or defeat, life or death, war or peace. Today, here in this once opulent surroundings, their fates and the fate of the very world would be decided.

'No pressure,' Tom sarcastically groused to himself as the full weight of responsibility for world peace pressed upon his soul. He was heartened to see the same weight seemingly settle on the other league member's shoulders as their hands rested upon one another. They were in this together and together they would see it finished…or die trying.

In his turn he met each member's eyes, trying valiantly to convey what he felt for each person, to give them what strength he could spare to help fortify them for their own fight against this union of darkness M had assembled. But on one person he dared not look. Saying a provisional goodbye to Allan Quatermain wasn't necessary…they would travel this last path at each other's side and be the unrelenting force that brought M to his knees.

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As Sawyer and Quatermain maneuvered through the vast fortress, the hunter's innate sense of direction leading them through the maze of hallways, the spy could feel the tension humming through the older man. With clarity Tom knew he, unintentionally, was the cause for some of Allan's apprehension. No matter how many times he had tried to ease the older man's guilt over his son's death, it still clung to the adventurer. And that guilt was now at a crescendo, causing the infamous ex spy to doubt his ability to protect Sawyer in the battle to come, to have misgivings at the decision to have anyone else's life in his incompetent hands, hands that had held his dying son instead of finding someway of protecting the boy.

When this whole hunt had begun, Sawyer would have met this reaction from Quatermain with a gruff boast of 'I don't need you to protect me,' but things had changed, he had changed. The idea that Allan 'wanted' to protect him…that touched him more deeply than he thought possible. And deep down, where he kept everything that made him vulnerable to harm, he admitted he 'liked' Allan's protectiveness, even welcomed it. But he would not utter those words, would not drop his last line of defense against pain. Instead he called out to Quatermain, "You lead, I follow," his words coming ease, his trust in Allan unswerving, trust he knew was not misplaced. Just as Harry's trust, no matter how things had turned out, had not been misguided.

Sawyer's words pierced through any barriers Allan Quatermain still had erected. He rebelled against Tom's devotion even as he reveled in it. Second chances…they scared him worse than anything as he maneuvered the great hallways, Sawyer at his back and dread in his heart. 'This time things will be alright. Evil will lose, good will win. Tom won't be taken from me like Harry was. I won't let that happen!'

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The Fantom was without his mask but Tom Sawyer knew that stride, recognized the bold ego that emanated from the man that stalked across the room only a few feet away. Judgment day had arrived. Huck would be avenged and justice would be served. Even as he prepared to raise his rifle, to send a bullet through the heart of his best friend's murderer, Allan stepped forward, pressing his rifle barrel against the base of M's neck.

With his heart pounding in his chest, Tom kept his rifle trained on M, wondering what Quatermain's next move would be, fearing that this might well be the point in the journey where his own path was about to diverge irrevocable from the man he had come to respect above all men. Letting M live while Huck had died…that was something Tom didn't think he could bear…even if he had to go through Allan to see that justice done.

Suddenly his instinct gave a shout of warning. Without turning around, the spy smashed the butt of his rifle into the man who was sneaking up behind them. The distraction was but a second…but Tom was to learn what Huck had learned at a very high cost. M never wasted distractions.

Sawyer was about to take up pursuit of the fleeing M when he saw the man unleash a knife into the air…directed at Allan. 'Not this time, you bastard!' Tom vowed, calling out "Watch out!" as he crashed into Quatermain, sending them to the ground while the knife imbedded into a painting behind where the hunter had stood a second earlier. "Eyes open boy. I can't protect you all the time," he taunted wearing his trade mark smirk as he basked in Allan's embarrassed, disgruntled look, thanking God that this time he had been able to stop the Fantom from taking someone he loved. "Come on, let's finish this," he said, aiding Quatermain to his feet and letting the hunter take the lead as they took up pursuit of their wily prey.

Finding themselves with M just a few paces ahead, victory seemed inevitable. Until someone unseen slammed Sawyer into the wall and the spy, mistakenly assuming he knew his assailant's identity, urged Quatermain to continue his chase of M. It took but one sight of the knife levitating in the air, sweeping for his throat, for Sawyer to know the true depths of his error. All invisible men were not created equally.

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There was no honor in the battle that waged between M and Quatermain, the stakes were too high for such considerations. Every tactic was fair game, every object was a weapon. War or peace was in the balance. There could be no compromise, not here, not now.

"To the death," M growled, attacking the hunter with fervor only to be thwarted by the adventurer's uncanny agility. "I hope I have your fire at your age."

"You won't live beyond today, I promise you that!" Allan vowed, struggling to press his advantage to put actions to words. To rid the world of this man's evil, to avenge Tom Sawyer's grief and pain, to spare the young spy the soiled soul murder always left behind…whether the murder was justified or not.

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His guns lying useless on the ground, his back against the wall, death seemingly inevitable, Tom Sawyer did what he had done all his life. He braced himself for what would come and took a stand, the metal torch sconce tightly in his grasp. Going out like a crispy marshmallow hadn't been in his equation but he could face that fate bravely, knowing that Quatermain would honor the oath he had once given him. He would see justice done, he would kill M if Sawyer could not.

Tightening his grasp on the only weapon left to him, Tom Sawyer prepared to fight with the last breath he had. In surprise, he watched the flame throwing tin man stumbling a moment before a disembodied voice ordered "Sawyer! Run for it!". Before Tom could guess Skinner's intentions, a pipe pierced the tank on the armored man's back. In a panic, the villain spun around, his flame sqorching all it's path..and igniting the fleeing invisible man.

In horror and worry, the spy saw Skinner's outline..not in white paint but fire. With a yell of rage, he swung the sconce into the already damaged tank. Crashing to his knees, M's assassin barely drew another breath before the tanks on his back exploded. Fear clutching his heart, Tom left the charred man's corpse without a glance, intent on finding Skinner.

Tom's knees went weak at the sight of Skinner's burned skin, his body shaking in pain. "Skinner," the agent choked out past his constricted throat as he knelt down beside the injured man, terrified that his touch would only intensify the Skinner's agony. 'Why'd you save me, Skinner! Why'd you put yourself at risk! I'm not worth..this.'

"That's the last time I play with matches," Skinner's agony laced voice bravely joked.

Uncertain how he could ever thank Skinner for saving his life or be forgiven for the terrible cost his rescue was evoking from the other him, Tom swallowed hard before he opened his mouth. He never got a chance to utter a sound.

He would know the cold steely touch of a knife even in a cave. The blade bit into his throat, causing him to lift his head and fight the need to swallow. 'Damn. I should have known a knife would be the end of me…like it had been for Huck. Maybe this was Injun Joe's curse on us, he always did favor a blade.'

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Sawyer thought he was prepared for whatever lay at the end of the trek he and M's invisible man were taking. But now, seeing the scene before him, he knew how wrong he was. Leverage…that's what he was and it left a bitter taste in his mouth and a whirlpool of dread in his gut.

"…Wrong. Wrong about your little American friend as well. You really think he's ready for action. I think you trained him about as well as you trained your son," M taunted, holding up the mask to reflect the scene behind Quatermain.

Sawyer opened his mouth to yell, "Kill him Allan!" but the blade pressed brutally against his throat, cutting off his breath and causing his words to be trapped inside his own mind. 'Kill him, Allan! Don't fall for his tricks like I did, like Huck did!'

In horror, Sawyer watched the man he loved like a father, seemingly commit suicide by turning his back on M. As his assailant's body jerked with the impact of Quatermain's bullet, Sawyer nearly tumbled to the ground in an effort to escape the reflexive motion of the corpse's hand as it slid, the knife still clutched in it's dead grasp.

Allan's action had been without thought, without regret and without a kernel of concern for himself or the fate of the world. The only thing that had mattered was protecting Sawyer, keeping his adoptive son safe. Even as M's knife sank into his back, his relief at seeing Sawyer on the landing, unharmed and free from threat didn't diminish nor did he regret his choice. His life for Tom's, that was an outcome he readily accepted.

As he withdrew his broken glasses from his pocket, Allan recognized the hands of fate. "Get 'em," he ordered, sending Sawyer to the crack in the wall which M had made his escape, Matilda in his hands and vengeance in his grasp. Here and now there were no blurred lines between vengeance and justice, murder and duty. If M escaped bearing the box, the whole world would reap the unholy consequences.

"It's too far," Tom faltered, feeling the enormous weight of the world on his shoulders.

"Take your time," Allan instructed, "You're ready ." Pain and weakness blossomed in his chest causing him to stumble back into the support of a chair but he would not leave Sawyer, not until his boy no longer needed his support. "Take your time," he wheezed, vividly remembering the spark of joy he had felt when he had uttered those words to the American on the submarine just days prior, paternal feelings long buried surfacing quicker than the Nautilus. Now those feelings were emanating from every pore he owned as he watched Tom save the world, prouder of the boy than he could ever express.

"I got him!" the spy exclaimed, surprised by his own skill and exhilarated by the victory. Seeking Quatermain's approval like he would his father's, Tom spun around only to freeze as if pole axed. It was Allan's eyes that pierced into Tom's heart with sharp cruelty. He had seen that look before…on a London dock, in the eyes of Huckleberry Finn, a look of apology, of regret, of sadness, of pain and brave acceptance of the hand fate had dealt him. 'Noooooo!' boomed in his head, denial, anger, guilt and gut wrenching despair meshed in his soul. 'Not Quatermain, too! God, it's supposed to me this time! My life for his! Never his life for mine!'

TBC

Love to hear your thoughts! I think there will be just one more chapter to go!

Cheryl W.