Author's Note: Set about a month later, after the castle of cards falls.

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Napoly was wreathed in a drapery of rain, slashes and slivers of raindrops pounding against the time-scarred place. In one of the broken-down buildings, from one of the windows, a light curl of cigarette smoke was not even discernible. But if anyone looked up, they would see a window open and a young man standing there in an open shirt, his cigarette glowing as he drew on it.

Not, in itself, a strange scene. The young man wasn't any different from any of the other young men in any of the other dilapidated flats around. His brown hair was unremarkable, his pleasant face, his lanky frame and his absent-minded stare out into the empty midnight street. Unless one knew whom this young man was.

Colin wasn't sure why he felt the need for a smoke, but he did. Suzette was asleep in the bed behind him and he ached to be back there next to her, loving the silky smoothness of her skin, just the sheer pleasure of her presence. Knowing she was back for good made him feel like the world was changing for the better, even if it couldn't go back to the way it had been. And God, but he wished it could go back to the way it had been.

Ah, those had been magic nights, then. A camera around his neck and whole streets to be discovered, people to be met, Suzette to dance with and a score of friends to greet. Cool playing his trumpet in Chez Nobody and Dean doing his thing with the ladies.TheMisery Kid and Wiz, before Dido and Henley and…

And that was where he realized he had just lit up his second cigarette. He grimaced down at it and threw it away into the street. He didn't need cigarettes any more. He never smoked, really. Just a few times. Once in the club when they saw that new singer and Wiz had been such a bastard. The other times with…

No, Colin would not think about Vendice Partners. Which meant that he was thinking about Vendice Partners. Yes, thinking about his former boss and hating him all the while. The prick had tried to destroy Colin's world. Him and his gang of thugs tearing up Napoly, tearing up Colin's old haunts. Starting up race riots and fires and all-out warfare. What did it matter? Black, white, coloured, whatever- Napoly wasn't like that. Until Vendice and his gang of thugs.

"Bloody parasite," Colin murmured out to the humid night air.

Looking around at ruined homes and worried families. Not a good place to be any more. Colin felt just a little guilty. The photographs strewn around his room told him things he hadn't seen before. So caught up with his newfound fame and his riches that he couldn't spare a thought for his Sweet and Sour Home? Yeah. That sounded exactly right. Too busy to realize what his boss was really doing. Vendice and his crazy schedules. Handing out photography assignments like they were oxygen.

"Get this… cover that… Tomorrow's best-selling product is today's work, son…"

Colin snorted and looked around quickly when Suzette stirred slightly at the sound. But she didn't wake up. She only shifted her pretty blond head, cooed something into the pillow and burrowed under the blankets. In the dimness, the shadows in her face couldn't be seen.

Vendice's fault, of course. Colin was quite ready to blame Vendice for this too. Him and his world of fast cars and alcohol riddled cocktail parties.

A voice in the man's heart demurred slightly- not completely Vendice's fault, surely? The man had made it possible, sold people their own dreams and insecurities and left them to drown in their most abandoned desires. But he was just shadow, surely? After all, Suzette hadn't married him. She'd married Henley of all the Godawful old queens of the fashion brigade and to be brutally honest that was really her own fault. She stopped at nothing to get what she wanted and when she got it she hated it. Not Vendice's fault, surely?

Though, Colin pointed out to the little voice, Henley was Vendice's partner. And if anyone knew what Henley really was, it was Vendice. The man knew, Colin would stake his life on that. And he hadn't said a word about Suzette. Somehow, and Colin was not quite sure how, but Vendice was responsible for Suzette's trouble no matter what anyone might say. For one thing, if this ridiculous plan for the apartment complex had gone through, Henley would have been even richer.

Rich. Colin brooded some more. He still had some money lying around. Most of it was spent, naturally, though he could always sell his moped and he could go back to taking dirty pictures. The exhibition would be out now. Vendice wouldn't get it for him now, would he? Not likely! Not after Colin finding out about his crooked schemes and trying to stop them.

Dido hadn't been much help. Those rich, socialite Americans… Colin should have known better. But how was he to know Vendice had already tied up that loose end? Dido had laughed at him and gone back to her own little world of money. What was Napoly to her? If an apartment complex would make her lover rich, then she went all out for it.

Literally.

Right out of her clothes.

Bitch.

Colin sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly. Dido with her bright red hair and flawless skin, her drawling American accent and the way she slipped an invitation into every conversation with anything male. Her long legs and too-high heels and those damned, manicured, long-nailed, red-tipped hands that bloody well always reached for his trousers! What was it with all these adults?

Adults! That was the problem! All this came because of adults. Irresponsible little blighters, the lot of them. Dido and Charmers, both, on national television! And that stupid old man with the false wig that made fun of his friends. National Television! How dared he? Dean wasn't half dead; he was… cool, laid back.

And both bloody well on either side of him with their wandering hands. What were they trying to do? Race each other to see who got to touch him first? He wasn't like that. His friends weren't like that. The whole bloody teenaged world had nothing on the parcel of adults that he'd met.

And Vendice behind it all, pulling strings like the Master Puppeteer that he was, waiting greedily like the elegant vulture Colin knew he was. The man never concealed it. He relished scandal. He loved an edge. He wanted to meet something different, something new, something with a twist. Crisps with a strange new flavour, photographed being eaten by a beautiful girl wearing next to nothing. Why? Because he wanted to be brash, hip, out there in front of the rest of the pack.

"Be bold, be brave. Sell dreams, Colin; make people want it."

That little grate of his nervous voice. The insinuating grace he used to slip through a crowd. The way he stood in a corner at a party and just watched people. Even that first time, he was upstairs, watching the party from the landing until he saw Colin and came down to yank his chains. Bloody upper level; Colin should have guessed it then.

But that wasn't what Colin wanted to be thinking about. He was looking out of his window to watch the rain. The fires would have been put out by now. But Chez Nobody was gone. It wouldn't come back, not like it used to be. He sighed and shook his head, reached out to catch a few warm raindrops in his hand. It wouldn't be the same.

Absolute Beginners. Well, not anymore. Summer was over and the rains had come. It had been innocent. No more. Colin didn't want to be morbid- he really didn't- but he more than anyone else knew what teenagers were up against.

"What makes us tick?" he recited under his breath, "The new economic class. Targeted by every trickster in London. Bloody adults."

Bloody adults, indeed. Colin didn't want to be any of the adults he knew- not his henpecked father, his unfaithful mother, not Henley, not Dido. They were all children, he reckoned. He could turn around and pick up any photograph off the floor and he could show how these silly sods were all childish. Except for one- Vendice Partners.

The man was a prowling wolf, but an adult wolf. He knew exactly what he was doing. He knew what would happen. He knew how to manipulate people, how to get what he wanted. He liked power and he liked money. He didn't give a hoot about fame. Fame could go hang itself where Ven was concerned because he saw fame for what it was- hollow and useless. Colin took pictures; he knew hollow when he saw it.

Ven...

Warm arms wrapped around the young man from behind, startling, and for just a second he almost turned and tried to push the person away. But Suzette's quiet sigh stilled him. He did pull her around, though, putting her between him and the window so he could rest his cheek against her hair and hold her tight in his arms.

She was still so fragile, he mused, so untouched. In spite of everything she'd done to ruin her own life, she'd been one of the lucky ones.

"Colin?" She didn't need to say more than that.

"Nothing, Suze. Did I wake you?"

"No. But you weren't in bed. I thought you might be upset or something."

"Just thinking," Colin soothed, "Nothing much, really. Just about this summer."

She shivered in his arms and tried not to think about her wedding night and the separate beds. Not to think about the pretty boy younger than her that Henley had taken to dinner three times a week regardless of whether she'd be sitting home alone or not. Those people, the papers and the hectic fashion shoots. How she had wished that Colin could be the one taking the pictures and knowing that even if she asked he would not do it. Colin didn't take fashion pictures; he took pictures of people. Though now she thought of it…

"I saw some of your pictures in the papers," she said softly, "And the one with the girl and the snow."

"Oh, that one." Colin felt just a little sheepish. That had been rather an enjoyable shoot, in actual fact. Though not for the model. He had smoked his first cigarette after, lying in a bed with a long, strong body.

"Yes. I thought you said you wouldn't photograph any models," she huffed.

"It was a job, Suze. And that shoot wasn't my idea."

"Oh, really. Then whose was it?"

"Vendice Partners." His voice dropped venomously with that name.

Suzette bit her lip and squinted at the rain. The name was familiar and she was certain she had heard it before. If she wasn't mistaken, she had even shaken his hand. But for the life of her she couldn't remember what he had looked like. The summer was still just a blur of parties and strong cocktails. "Was he a short man with blue eyes?" she asked.

"Tanned and blond? Yeah, that's him. Met him?"

"A few times, I think. Henley used to talk about him. They were business partners. I saw some papers once."

"I know. Let's not talk about Henley or Vendice, hmmm? We're finished with them, you and me, and we have a whole new life to start again." He kissed her cheek and smiled at her giggle.

"Oh, Colin." She swatted at him and then shrieked as he tickled her before picking her up over his shoulder and marching her to the bed. She fell onto the thin mattress with an undignified 'whump' and yelled again as the tickling began in earnest.

"Stop, stop! Colin, stop!" She was laughing so hard, a tear slipped free.

Colin stopped and considerately got off her. He smiled down at her, enjoying the soft happiness in being able to do so.

No, Vendice Partners or not, the Absolute Beginners were starting again. This time, they'd leave out the hot, sticky, humid summer and go straight to the burst of rain.