Author's Note: and I'm still on a roll. Apparently this story wants to be written. I wish it'd nudge 'Fractured Secrets' along. siiigh
Anyway, new chapter. I'm sure you can see that. Please enjoy.
What the hell? "What are you doing?!" I gasp. Waking up to find Sheldon watching me is out of the ordinary, but certainly not anything new. He's always been a watcher. Even from the day we met. The gun though…Sheldon doesn't – didn't – like guns. Not out of any long held and cherished morals, but because they're too loud. I'm the one that doesn't like weapons. It's my point of view that they only encourage and facilitate the spread of violence.
"How dare you bring that thing into my house?" I demanded angrily. From the way his lips quirk, I think that my reaction isn't completely what he expected. Has he forgotten that anger always follows on the footsteps of my fear?
The sound of something breaking downstairs jerks my attention away from my unfathomable husband and makes me sit up in bed. "What's going on down ther –" I'm cut off as Sheldon smoothly slips behind me and wraps his arm around my chest. His body is warm. And that makes me irrationally uncomfortable. More so than the already forgotten gun in his hand. "Sheldon –"
"Can't you at least pretend to be a little intimidated by me?" he interrupts over the sound of crashes moving up the stairs and men's yelling.
"You're not going to shoot me," I reply absently and with more than a bit of bravado. At least I hope not.
"You know that and I know that, but I'm counting on them not knowing that." Now that he has me positioned the way he wants – which is with me facing the doorway – he resumes his threatening with the gun.
"'Them' who?" I flinch away from the cold touch of metal on the side of my face.
"Shh. Be a good little hostage and –"
"A what?!" I yelp as men come spilling through my bedroom door, and me in only my pajamas.
"Officer Sands! Lower your firearm and surrender yourself!"
My mouth is hanging open at the sight of the Kevlar-vest-wearing, rifle-bearing men. Sheldon isn't nearly as speechless as I – not that he ever has been.
"Now why would I do a thing like that? Really, Pete, I'm feeling a wee bit crowded here." I let out a small whimper as he roughly jerks my head back until its resting on his shoulder; all I can see is the ceiling. "How many are there?" he whispers in my ear.
"What?" It's difficult to ask the question with his hand under my chin.
Their speaker is going on and on about how Sheldon needs to give himself up and about other more impossible things, like how he's going to be sent to jail for the deaths of some of his colleagues. Sheldon just uses all that noise to cover up his question; his mouth barely moves. "I'm kinda having a bad day." Why is there so much irony in his voice? "How many are there?"
"Four," I whisper, assuming he means the intruders. But can't he see that?
"That you can see?"
That I could see. He's got a lot of explaining to do for his treatment of me, but I still answer softly. "Yes."
"Alright. Do you still keep a change of clothes in your trunk?"
"Yes, but –" His hand closes my mouth.
If it hadn't been necessary to be rough with her, he wouldn't have been. But since he didn't have much of a choice at the moment, Sands felt no guilt in pulling Liz up by his grip on her neck. And why is it necessary? Because she's refusing to play her part in this twisted comedy. She never did like the theater. I wonder if this is a comedy of errors yet. Sands pushed the distracting thoughts out of his head and turned his attention to the more pressing situation.
"Really, you're spouting clichéd dialogue with only minimal flair, Pete," Sands drawled as he and Liz got to their feet, his gun never wavering from its place at her temple. "You'd never make it on Broadway. Now, let me tell you how things are going to be. And no, this isn't the part where the evil genius gets so caught up in his plans that he forgets just how foolhardy the hero is." That tag was added just before he took a shot at a man who was inching forward on his left. Sands wasn't trying to hit the man – not that it would matter if he did – but he was serious about his breathing room. He didn't like crowds anymore.
It was only after Liz jumped in his grip that he remembered how much she disliked weapons. Instead of feeling apologetic though, he thought, I wonder what Liz is wearing. The memory of dull cotton pajamas that had always seemed to fill her drawers helped him put that salacious question out of his head. He cleared his throat and continued.
"Lizzie here has graciously offered me the use of her car, isn't that right, sweet stuff?" He kept her from trying to actually answer by slightly digging the barrel of his gun into her skin; her likely profane comment was turned into a gurgle that might well have been interpreted as a sound of terror by the men he was facing down. That would be nice. "However, since I forgot my driving glasses, she's going to have to come with me. And to make sure that she reaches her destination without any accidents –" the word hung heavily in the air, " – you're not going to follow us. Capische?"
"The United States government does not negotiate with –"
"I'm negotiating with you, Pete. Not the White House." Sands' voice sounded vaguely annoyed. "Though if you think about it, this is really more of an ultimatum than an attempt at diplomacy. Now, do we go or do I have to maim my lovely wife to convince you I mean business?"
Liz stiffened at the veiled threat, now much more on edge since Sands had actually fired his weapon. Go to hell, she wanted to yell at him, but he was still pressing up on her jaw; she tried to struggle free of him, but he stilled her by cutting off her air supply.
"And I do mean business, Pete," Sands warned as he let Liz go red. "We go or I take down as many of your boys as I can, plus the little missus." Com'on, Lizzie. Don't tell me you're falling for this bull-hocky. Before he'd left, she'd learned to see through most of his scams. Was that something a person could forget how to do?
"You traitorous bas–"
Sands clicked his tongue – which did not disguise the sound of the hammer cocking in preparation of being fired again – and shook his head. "Such language in front of a lady. No wonder yours ran out. Oh, wait, bad Sands. She found out about the guy you had on the side." Oh, he wished he could see the other man's face. It didn't matter if what he'd just said was true or not – those kinds of rumors could be enough to stall poor Pete's career indefinitely.
"I'm going to get you, Sands," Pete Rickman growled as he lowered his weapon. According to the Attorney General, they couldn't risk injury to a civilian, and Mrs. Sands was starting to turn purple.
"Perhaps," Sands agreed smoothly, letting up his grip a little. Enough so that Liz could take deep breaths if she was patient. She wasn't. Sands had to raise his voice to speak over her thin cough. "But right now you're going to occupy yourselves in here. And just to ease my troubled mind, you'll also radio your squad outside to let them know about our little arrangement." Silence. "Daylight's burning, Pete." Sands tensed his fingers, digging into the flesh of Liz's neck, giving the appearance – but not the reality – of resuming his stranglehold. He was going to need to have her on his side. Not fully, but at least a smidgen.
"Pull over at the nearest rest station." I suffer through several moments of sullen silence, but finally Liz responds.
"Why?" she mutters, just loud enough for me to hear her.
She mad – furiously mad – at me. It's too bad, but I can't let it crimp my style. At least not at the moment. Maybe someday – assuming I'm both alive and free to see "someday" – I'll apologize. I hope she doesn't hold her breath.
"Well I don't know about you, but I need to take a piss and I thought you might want to change into clothing that's a bit more…substantial." I can almost hear her grinding her teeth. Nasty habit. She used to have to wear something in her mouth at night to keep from doing it for hours on end. It's also an excellent indicator that she's about ready to pop her top. I know I should bit my tongue, but five years of habitually acting like an asshole – there! I said it. – is hard to overcome overnight. "Gee, your gratitude is so much less than underwhelming." I hear a rattle come from her right hand – that's the fifth time she's forgotten that she's handcuffed to the gear shift.
A deep sigh escapes me. I've managed to hold it back for most of the morning, but she's such a poor sport. "Look, it's nothing personal, Lizzie –"
"Ha!"
Okay, I admit that if our places were reversed, my point of view – ha-ha, point of view. That's a good one – might be that this was very personal indeed. But she's the one that's making it personal. I just need a chauffer.
The car shudders as it slows down. I was foolish enough to point it out once and she neatly speared me with the observation that had I been home, maybe there would have been enough money to buy a new one. Now I keep my mouth shut when various buzzers let out shrill warnings that doors are open when they're not or that seatbelts are disengaged when they really are buckled.
The car stops, eliciting another mechanical alarm from the overworked vehicle. She hits something; the sound stops. Now the only sound either of us can hear are small pings and clicks as the engine starts to cool. A chill creeps into the car. New England is still firmly in the grip of winter, and the season isn't shy to make itself known. Earlier, the windshield wipers were shrieking – I assume in an effort to clear enough snow away to make driving safe enough to give Liz confidence in what she was doing. She doesn't like snow. Having grown up in the Pacific Northwest, she only had to deal with it once in a blue moon. Apparently she still hasn't adjusted…no, that's unfair. When we first moved to Virginia, she made me do all the driving in winter.
It's getting colder. One of us has to make the first move. "Your clothes still in the trunk?" When she doesn't answer, I assume what I took for her shifting her weight was instead a shrug. "Do you need to use the ladies room?"
"No." This answer is short and to the point. It also reminds me that she probably hasn't eaten yet today. She's not in danger of starving anytime soon.
"Alright." Fine with me. I don't really want to let her out of earshot because I wouldn't put it past her take off. It's more likely that she'd sit here and wait for me, if only on the off-chance that she might be able to make me miserable, but since I have a very permanent reminder of what happens when you take chances, I'm more than inclined to leave her sitting here.
Venturing into the cold, car keys in hand – I'm not going to give her the chance to drive off either – I shortly return with the overnight bag that has her clothing in it. I leave her to get dressed as best she can while I go to use the men's room.
Why is it that the john is such a wonderful place to think? Is it something about being as exposed as one can get in public without being slapped with an indecency charge? I don't know, but somewhere in the midst of my philosophical ruminations, I remembered just what had inspired them.
It was all well and good to get old Pete to promise not to come after us, but the big bosses weren't going to feel that it was necessary to honor that agreement. They'd be sneaky about it since there is a hostage involved… They'll probably try to track us by helicopter. And that would only be a threat if what they know what to look for was what they actually would find.
Ergo, the need for new transportation. Not to mention that the vibrations of the car were starting to give me the beginnings of a headache.
We need another car.
"What?" Liz wondered if the shock had finally gotten to her. That was the only explanation she could find that would explain away what she'd just heard her husband say. It was bizarre enough to find herself sitting handcuffed to her car, the sweatsuit she used to go jogging – freshly washed, thankfully – pulled on awkwardly over her pajamas. She was barefoot and her toes were getting cold. Her short hair was a mess of stale hairspray, causing it to stick out in strange directions where it wasn't matted to her head. This was already a surreal experience with her having heard what she thought she had.
"We're going to steal a car."
Damn. There he was saying it again. Well, at least I know I'm not going crazy. Oh, no. That would be him.
"I'm not stealing a car," she said flatly.
"Well, unless you want to get involved in a bloody shoot-out, I suggest you work with me here."
She eyed him distrustfully. Every time he used that tone – the one where he sounded like he was speaking to a particularly dumb toddler – he had something up his sleeve. Some kind of trump card. "I thought we'd already agreed that you're not going to shoot me," she muttered.
"Oh, I'm not, sweetness –"
"Don't call me that." Part of her wondered why she kept challenging him when she was so obviously helpless. A bigger part of her bristled at his continued pretense at some kind of intimacy existing between them. "I'm not your 'sweetness,' or your 'sweet thing,' or anything else. You've made it perfectly clear what I am."
A pain in the bum? "And what would that be, sweetness?" Now the nickname was a matter of who had control, and it was most definitely him.
"Oh, I don't know? A free meal? A roof over your head? A hostage?"
"You sell yourself short, Lizzie. You're a chauffer too. Now get out of the car."
"No. I don't have any shoes and it's snowing out there." Sands rubbed at his temples, but Lizzie refrained from asking what was wrong. If something was wrong, then he deserved it. "If you want to go, don't let me stop you."
"Well, there's the rub, Lizzie. By not accompanying me, you are in fact stopping me. Unless of course, I want to take another hostage. But they probably wouldn't be as well behaved as you, and I'd probably have to shoot them eventually, so you can see how I'd be disinclined to let you go on your merry way. Get out of the car."
"What do you need me for?" she pleaded. Her babies would be getting out of school soon, if they hadn't heard about their father's foolishness by now. Who was going to take care of them? "Chris and Mandy –" Mandy who'd shown unconditional love for her father. Chris who hurt so much from this man's abandonment. "They need me." But would this man care?
All the amusement and good humor that had graced Sands' countenance had fled. Using their children as a shield was low. Once he would have killed to keep his children safe. Hell, he had killed. He'd killed their father and become someone else to keep them protected from the world he was sinking into by necessity and later by choice. And now it wasn't a threat to his children that made his blood run cold, but the reminder of how totally and completely he'd left them abandoned. It couldn't be helped though.
"My colleagues will see to it that they're taken care of, Lizzie. Now…get out of the car."
His voice was hard and uncompromising. It was radically different than any tone he'd ever used to address her before, yet Liz found a familiar resonance in it. She couldn't place it, but it gave her courage to ignore his command. "You don't need me," she stressed. "You want to steal a car? Well how am I supposed to help with that? We'll forget for the moment that the last place on earth that I want to be is in close proximity with you. So what are you going to do? Hold someone at gunpoint and demand their keys? I won't be party to that. Are you going to hotwire something? I don't know how to do that. I wouldn't be any help." In a last ditch attempt to get him to see things her way, she reached across the space between them and grabbed his hand. "Please let me go, Sheldon."
Sands practically recoiled away from her, but it didn't last long. Within the space of a single breath, he'd turned the tables on her, imprisoning her one free hand in his grasp. Now she was well and truly trapped; her blood rushed into her ears in a great wave before leaving her head totally for her toes as she saw the absolutely emotionless look on his face. She realized that he could kill her right now and never have a second thought about it.
"Who are you?" she whispered in weak horror, pulling as far away from him as she could.
Cold irony twisted his mouth into an ugly parody of a smile. "Sheldon Jeffrey Sands of the CIA, at your service." The irony receded, leaving Sands feeling cold and empty; Liz's fear receded as well, leaving sadness in its wake. Her fingers automatically tightened around his because this stranger was still her husband and she still distantly loved him.
His soul – if he'd ever managed to reclaim his soul from the mental storage facility where he'd placed it shortly after his arrival in Mexico – ached. Distracted, Sands reached up to rub at his chest and the cold lump that seemed to sit there, but that would be too telling. He adjusted his sunglasses again. The words, the confession, the searing pain of admitting his arrogance were clamoring in the back of his mind. He wanted to tell her everything; from the conception of breaking free of the CIA to the bone-chilling memory of the high whine of a drill. His heart pounded recklessly at the thought of telling her that he was blind, admitting it, giving her that power over him, of seeing how she used that power. Knowledge is power, knowledge is power, knowledge is…
No. Not yet. He wouldn't tell her yet. But a compromise was in order. It was clear that he'd never get her to help him – god, he hated thinking that he needed help – unless he made some concessions. And he needed her firmly on his side. That was why he couldn't just leave her here and take another hostage. He wouldn't be able to sleep with one eye open – Never again. I'll never be able to do that again. – forever. If he was going to clear his name and get to the man who was trying to frame him, he needed an ally. She was his wife. If he couldn't get her to help him, who could he possibly turn to?
"You're wrong, Lizzie. I do need your help. I know you've got no reason to trust me, and I'm not asking you to. I'm asking you to just go along with me because I have no intention of being caught. And if I'm not caught, and I don't find the man who's responsible for turning my own colleagues against me, then you're going to have to deal with being hounded by the Agency until A) they give up, or B) I surrender myself. And they don't give up."
"And you won't surrender yourself." Especially not for a little thing like your family.
His mouth quirked as if he'd guessed what she was thinking, but he didn't say anything to correct her.
"What do I get in return, Sheldon?" There was more to the story than what he was giving her, she was sure of it. There was something he wasn't telling her about, some risk to life and limb that he was obscenely downplaying, some secret he was hiding. If she was going to be putting her neck on the line, then she sure as hell wanted to make sure that there was some kind of reward with going through with this madcap plan of his.
Sands' smile once again turned ironic, but not the cold irony of before. "That divorce you've been nagging people about."
"Doesn't seem like much."
He shrugged and let go of her hand. "I'd promise that you'd never have to set eyes on me again, but –"
"That's not our choice." That choice belonged to her children.
Her husband shrugged again; silence fell down around them while he waited for her answer, his fingers twitching in his sudden craving for a good smoke.
"Alright," she finally whispered, feeling as if she were signing her soul away to the devil himself. "But once we come to the next town, we're buying bus tickets, and we're calling to police to let them know where to find the car."
"Whatever you say, sugarbutt."
"I'm serious, Sheldon," she protested as he reached down to free unlock the cuff that was around the gear shift. He didn't reply – other than to get out of the car – and she had the distinct feeling that he was laughing at her.
He never said thank you.
The snow was cold under her bare feet.
I don't know what's wrong with him.
We'd crossed the border into Virginia shortly after noon, and arrived in small town named Passapatanzy about an hour ago. It wasn't much – at least not to eyes that'd gotten used to the scenery of Bethesda – but it had a bus station.
Sheldon insisted we stop by a store where he went inside and bought me a pair of shoes. Once he'd brought them back for me, we both went inside. He let me get a few necessities and two changes of clothes. "No more than can fill up a backpack," he said. Still subdued from our talk in the parking lot of the rest station, I listened and did as he said. He finished his shopping before I did; I think he wanted to hide something from me, but I can't image what. I do know that his bag rattled slightly, as if there was a bottle of pills inside. Why he'd want to hide that, I've no idea.
Anyway…
We went to the bus station and bought tickets for Martinsburg, West Virginia; since nothing was leaving town until the next day, I insisted that we find somewhere to stay for the night. We found a little motel, got a room with double beds, and that's when I got the suspicion that something wasn't quite right. That is, if "suspicion" means the glaring light of truth beat down on us with all the mercy of a desert sun.
As we were walking through the uninspired hallways to our room, Sheldon nearly walked right into a wall. That wasn't what worried me though. What worried me was the way he reacted. All he did was misjudge the corner a little so that his left arm brushed against the wall. I caught it out of the corner of my eye; by the time I'd turned my head, Sheldon had jumped back, pulled out his gun, and fired a shot into the wall. Now I wonder what would have happened if there hadn't been a silencer on the weapon. Then I was shocked.
"Sheldon?" I breathed, not liking the way all color had drained from his face. He swayed on his feet; I reached out and wrapped my hand around his elbow. He leaned against me for a few breaths. By the way he didn't say anything, I figured he knew that he'd just shot a defenseless wall. Then he pulled away from me and tersely asked if I'd be kind enough to get my butt moving.
That was nearly two hours ago. When we got into the room, Sheldon took up residence on one of the beds. He hasn't said anything since, not even to tell me that I'm irritating him with all my concern. And I know I am, or that I was. I could see it on his face. Well, he's irritating too.
I took a shower in the tiny little bathroom, dried myself on the threadbare towels, and dressed in my sweats. If what happened this morning is going to become a reoccurring event – I swear to god that if it does, I'm leaving. – I at least want to be dressed for the occasion.
Sheldon's asleep. He looks a little uncomfortable laying there, his head turned so that the arms of his sunglasses must be digging into his skin. I've been a mother for far longer than I've been a wife, so I tell myself it's that motherly instinct that's pushing me to remove his glasses. It's not an idle desire to rip them off his face because he's been wearing them constantly since he showed up on my doorstep. That would be beneath me.
But I don't get up from the bed I'm sitting on. I'm tired. I've been on edge all day long. I decide that it's no less than he deserves, after what he did to me this morning. My neck is bruised…I just found that out. Not severely, but when I got out of the shower and wiped the steam from the tarnishing mirror, there was a faint ring of bruising around my neck. Just thinking about it makes me shudder.
It takes a major force of will to make me get off the bed so I can brush my teeth, but I do it. And then I reward myself for my fortitude by getting under the top layer of covers on the bed and turning off the lights. He must be tired, I thought, rolling onto my side. He didn't even turn off any of the lights.
The flickering of the light in the bathroom woke Liz up. She never slept comfortably in new places. She looked at the alarm clock that was about the only amenity in this motel; it was shortly after midnight. With a groan of irritation, she rolled over and wondered if it'd be worth it to get up and turn off the light or leave it on all night. The darkness of strange places was so very…empty…in her mind. But it was the emptiness that foretold of coming occupation, and even at her age she was still a little leery of the dark.
It irritated her that Sands was still motionlessly asleep across from her. He hadn't seemed to have stirred a single finger in the past hours. Why does he get such carefree sleep? she grumped.
"Sheldon?" she asked softly, out of no other reason that if she couldn't sleep, then he wasn't going to get to sleep uninterrupted either. But her voice wasn't loud enough to get any more reaction out of him than a deep sigh. His mouth turned down at the corners as if his unconscious mind relegated her voice to some kind of nightmare.
"Sheldon." This time she said his name louder and more insistently.
It garnered the same reaction.
"Fine," she muttered, throwing aside her covers and swinging her feet out of the bed. Into the bathroom she went for a drink; she chose to leave the light on, but she did close the door a little to block some of the light. Now she had just enough to navigate by. Now there was just enough to dimly reflect of the lenses of Sands' glasses.
Liz stood by his side for a few minutes, contemplating the picture he made. Dressed all in black, he melted into the shadows. His hair looked like a dark stain on the pillow he was using. His face was a shade of browny-grey. The only thing that ruined the illusion of his being a shadow-man were the sunglasses. They aggravated her for some reason. He'd always loved sunglasses, but at least he used to take them off when he was talking to her. He'd known how much it bothered her to talk to someone whose eyes she couldn't see; it was the same with people who wore baseball caps low over their eyes. She'd been known to flip the hats off if the wearer wasn't polite enough to at least tip the bill up.
Since he'd come back, he hadn't once even motioned to take of his glasses.
Giving into temptation and thinking, Honestly. He should have known better, Liz reached down to pull the irritating accessory off.
She moved slowly to avoid detection. When her fingers ran across the smooth, perfect curve of the frame, she congratulated herself.
But the congratulations were premature.
"What the hell –"
Liz squeaked and jumped back, taking the glasses with her.
Author's Thanks: as always, I've many to thank, beginning with…Dawnie-7 (I really want to capture that awkwardness between a couple that's been through a long separation and a lot of life. Neither of them is what the other remembers, and I love the friction that results from that. There's no story without conflict, and I'm much better at writing personal conflict rather than action conflict. :P); Merrie (You're not getting chapters out of me. You're getting them out of the story. I swear I have nothing to do with anything that's going on here. ); vanillafluffy (I'm glad the POV changes aren't confusing. I'm trying to keep a pattern going – i.e. narrator, Sands, narrator, Liz, narrator, etc… - and it certainly helps me not to get board. I'm all about insinuation, but hopefully I'll be able to back it up. My plot for this fic is ever so much clearer though than my plot for FS. As for safety, if I guaranteed anyone's safety, what fun would I have? D); Lynx (can I just say how much I love your monster reviews:P One of the things I kinda observed about Sands – and this is through the movie, through the RR commentary, and the other extra features – is that his sense of humor is a rather morbid, and that he doesn't really use it. After all, he's making jokes with Jorge there at the end. So to take that humor away would be to concentrate on another face of Sands, and I've never written this one. Sands isn't so much a family man, as much as he uses what he knows about people to manipulate situations to his best interest. And he knows his family well, or better than he knows a lot of people in the states. Right now I don't know if Sands is going to end up with his family or not. It's a possibility, but I've got lots of those.); quick29 (withdrawal isn't a good thing. If I can help out with that, I'm more than happy to. ); Arenas (Nah, don't worry. You know I'm the first to tell anyone to get some sleep. ;) Bittersweet…there's a good descriptor. Not exactly angst, but very bittersweet.); normal human being (That's the thing about the OUATIM bandwagon – sometimes Sands gets crowded and pushes you off. I'm glad you didn't notice the similarities I was afraid of. Now that I've got chapter two out of the way, I'm not afraid of the similarity either. Character development is very good, especially when trying to turn a vignette into a WIP.); CaptainJackSparrowsGirl (That's the great thing about Sands…it's so very easy to pick out a few comments about him and then see him in an entirely new light. This time my inspiration is more along the lines of "there's something incredibly romantic about the blind gunslinger." I'm glad that was said on the special features.); websurfer (I'm glad you're willing to go along with me on faith here. ;P I'm saving the revelation of blindness for the right moment. You gotta admit that he was doing okay in Mexico without his eyes. He's a tricky, tricky man, after all. The revelation that he's blind though will come long before we get the story behind it.); Spoofmaster (Apparently I am firmly a 'Sands goes back to the US' girl. All my OUATIM stories have revolved around that, it seems. But I am definitely against ex-girlfriends unless they're being used for information, a convenient place to platonically spend the night, or something like that, and they don't appear for more than one chapter. And sometimes I wish things would turn out a bit more conveniently for me.); misc (The end is a long way away still, but I'll certainly continue and finish sooner or later.); Little Fox (I did! Continue that is! Welcome!); Kitty Kisser (Well, I think that if you smote FS for me it'd get you better results. It's not me. It's the story. nods And I'm glad you're liking this.)
Note: I wrote an entire two paragraphs of 'Fractured Secrets' today, so hopefully I'll be ready to post some of that sooner or later.
