A/N: Thus enter Lisa.

---

Jackson was back in Miami in time for Bastille Day, not that it really mattered to him. What nagged him was the fact that he was going to be stuck in Miami until Poulain allowed the American operatives out of the country again—after all, what was better than all the jet-setting he'd grown accustomed to since he started work with them six years earlier? Despite having a Miami address for five years, he didn't have a clue as to what to do in the city; he was more comfortable giving directions around Berlin or Paris than he was giving them in Miami. Basically, he had a firm grasp of his college campuses and the routes he took to get there. It's not like he actually left the apartment for anything other than classes once Melissa moved away.

This problem led him back to the University of Miami quickly. On slow nights, he'd get in his car and drive to the campus, taking in whatever sports game or theatre show that might be on at that time. By late August, he'd been to countless American football, football, water polo, volleyball and cross-country meets. Basically, he was bored out of his mind but watching how the coaches in the team sports planned out their defences and offences at least kept him vaguely interested in what was being played out in front of him.

On the seventh day of September (he'd already called Ian the day before to let him know he'd lost the bet), Jackson sat around in his apartment looking at the sports schedule and shrugged at the thought of watching some women's field hockey. Basically, he figured (for he'd never actually seen a field hockey match before) it would be like football with glorified golf clubs. He didn't necessarily want to get there earlier, or on time for the match, for that matter, so he lazed around until about the middle of the first period. By the time he got there, the score was already shifted very unevenly towards the visiting team.

Always one to be on the winning side, Jackson went to the visitor's stands and sat down with his arms crossed over his chest as he watched the two teams battle it out. The visitors were from some other Florida team, that much he knew, but the name of the team wasn't on the scoreboard.

'Who are you here for?'

Jackson turned quickly to his side. 'Just here to watch.'

The man who asked the question raised an eyebrow before just turning back to watch the game. He was dressed to the nines in the team's attire and had a pin of some fresh-faced girl with long blonde hair and a toothy smile on his chest. After a few minutes of sitting uncomfortably next to the man, Jackson got up and walked to the edge of the field, leaning against the fence to look at the girls running up and down the pitch. The opposing team was definitely faster than the University of Miami and personally he thought their management was much better. They worked together seamlessly, and from the yelling, he thought he could pinpoint the base of their team pyramid.

She ran past him, her hands clutching the wooden stick. Her team was wearing little pleated skirts rather than the gym shorts the Miami girls were wearing, and the addition of the polo shirt and knee-high shin guards gave her the appearance of a schoolgirl. It didn't help that she had bouncy brown curls that had fallen out of her ponytail hanging down in her pale face. She was constantly screaming instructions to her teammates despite the fact that she was obviously out of breath; she seemed the over-working type. Around her upper arm was a band that, as far as he could tell, must have meant that she was the team captain because none of the other skirted girls had one. He watched as she passed the plastic ball to another girl and it went sailing past the goalkeeper.

The stands behind him erupted into cheers and the skirted girls threw their arms in the air and attacked the captain in their screaming mass.

'Score by University of Florida at 28:49 of the first period. Goal by number 18, Valdosta, assisted by team captain number 15, Reisert.'

'Reisert,' Jackson said with a smile, looking across the field at the woman who was now looking over in his direction. With a wide smile, she waved towards him and he looked behind him to see a couple that he figured were her parents.

By the time he looked back, the team had already gone back into playing formation and the clock started again. He enjoyed watching her move down the field, the quick way she ducked out of the path of oncoming players, the way she kept the ball on her side of the court.

'Coming to games for some ass? New, Jackson. New.'

Jackson nearly jumped over the fence when Melissa spoke right next to his ear. Turning quickly, he glared at her, but it was a little hard to glare to someone's face when there was a drooling one-and-a-half-year-old strapped to her chest. '... are you stalking me?'

'Yes,' she said, turning to look down at the pitch as she adjusted the other child on her hip. 'But really, I don't know what you did, but Poulain told me to come to Miami until the end of September.'

The cell phone strapped to her belt went off and she grumbled, handing the older child off to Jackson before grabbing it and walking off with her back to him. Jackson, surprised, held the child out an arm's length in front of him, each giving the other a helpless look. She just stared at him with huge brown eyes, her arms limp to her sides. Although Jackson looked over at Melissa for instruction, she was still talking animatedly at whoever it was at the other end and just held a hand up to him when he tried to say anything. So, as a last resort, Jackson just glared at the little girl and was surprised when she gave him a glare in return.

'Mum says your bark is worse than your bite.'

Jackson gaped. 'Do you even know what that means?'

'That you're not scary,' she said back, still hanging limply in his arms. 'Even though you think you are.'

Without warning, Jackson dropped her and caught her a foot or so later, which made her eyes grow wider. When he caught her, she grabbed onto his wrists, digging the ends of her little fingers into his skin with panic. He grinned at her as the horn signalled the beginning of the five-minute-long break between periods.

'Still not scary?' he asked.

As she glared at him, he saw that tears were collecting at the edge of her eyes as her face turned red. 'I'll cry and Mum will come over and hurt you!'

He rolled his eyes at her before dropping and catching her again. This time, however, she didn't bother giving him the warning talk and instead just started letting out a high-pitched wail. He nearly dropped her for real this time and then quickly pulled her to his chest, looking at the people around him who were now staring at him. She pulled her head away from his chest and kept screaming until Melissa walked over, placing her hand over the receiver of her cell phone.

'What did you do?'

'Nothing,' he said, grabbing the back of the girl's head and forcing it against him. 'We were just playing, right?'

Giving him an untrusting look, she raised the cell phone back to her ear. 'I'll call you later.'

Slipping the phone back onto her belt, she looked back at Jackson, who was now holding a very calm little girl who was sucking her thumb and grinning wickedly at her mother. Melissa gave her daughter a dark, punishing look.

'That's Agatha,' said Melissa then pointed to the sleeping child strapped to her. 'And this is Christopher.'

Pressing his lips close to Agatha's ear, he spoke just loud enough for her mother to hear. 'In the good old days, children like you were left to perish on windswept crags.'

Rolling her eyes, she looked down at the pitch where the players were starting to get into position once again. 'Which one are you looking at?'

'I just came to see the game.'

'Oh come on,' she replied, putting her hands on her hips. 'You were staring at one of them when I walked up.'

'The captain of the University of Florida team,' he finally said after a pause. 'But I didn't come here to see her; she just happened to come across my sight.'

They stood in silence for a few minutes, watching the game, until a goal was finally scored by the University of Miami. 'Working on any new jobs?'

'The organisation is on hiatus.'

'Are you serious?' she asked, turning to him.

'Just in North America,' he replied, nonchalant. 'I'm still doing satellite jobs for Europe, but I'm not allowed out of the country. Poulain doesn't want any of us flying either, so I'm stuck here in Miami.'

She narrowed her eyes. 'What are you not telling me?'

'I'm telling you as much as a civilian is allowed to know,' he replied curtly, giving her an icy look. 'You're not in the know anymore. How did you even find me here?'

'I was already at the game. My sister's playing and I came to watch her.'

Jackson was caught off-guard. 'Your sister? You have a sister?'

'I already said it, didn't I?' she snapped.

'Her name is Aunt Danielle,' Agatha said from around his neck area before changing her tone to let him know she was obviously mimicking someone. 'She's here on the World Society scholarship and we're very proud of her. Perhaps someday, Agatha, you can do the same.'

'I was standing on the other side, saw you, and figured I'd come over and exchange pleasantries,' she continued hastily.

'Very kind of you,' he said back, glaring down at the pitch. 'Would you like this back now?'

Reaching out, Melissa took her daughter, who was now grabbing tenaciously on to the collar of Jackson's shirt. They both tugged at her until she let go and Jackson angrily straightened his shirt.

'But Mum, he smells nice. I want to stay with him,' said Agatha in an extremely whiny voice as Melissa held her to her hip.

'No, say good-by to Jackson, Agatha,' Melissa said sharply, her eyes boring into Jackson.

'Good-by, Jackson,' Agatha said softly, waving a chubby hand at him before her mother turned and walked away.

With narrowed eyes, Jackson looked out at the Reisert girl's beautiful, bouncing brunette curls, imagining running his long fingers through it before stalking off himself, making a resolution that he wasn't going to go to another University of Miami sports game ever again. After wrestling through the crowd at the concession stand, he elbowed his way to his car and sped off, all the while thinking he should have just let Melissa move to New York City without intervening on her behalf to Matthias Poulain.

---

On the morning of 11 September, Jackson sat in his living room staring at the television and drinking a huge cup of coffee that he'd fetched from the Starbucks down the road from his condominium complex. Sipping the coffee, he kept his eyes set on the news; he expected that some time this morning would be the attack warned by the Middle East Delegate. CNN was silently playing on the screen, giving the same old news that he expected, but shortly before 9:00, there was a breaking news story and it showed the smoking north tower. He pressed the mute button once more and the condo filled with a woman's voice.

'Yeah. This just in. You're looking at obviously a very disturbing live shot there. That is the World Trade Center, and we have unconfirmed reports this morning that a plane has crashed into one of the towers of the World Trade Center. CNN Center is just beginning to work on this story, obviously, calling our sources and trying to figure out exactly what happened, but clearly something relatively devastating happening this morning there on the south end of the island of Manhattan. That is once again, a picture of one of the towers of the World Trade Center.'

Jackson leaned back in his chair and was wondering what he'd do with the two hundred dollars that would piss off Lyna the most. Grumbling a bit, he got up from the seat and went to the kitchen, setting his coffee cup in the microwave and reheating it as he watched smoke billow from the tower. Once his coffee finished reheating, he downed it and went to brush his teeth, walking out into the living room once more to stare at the television. He brushed away merrily, watching the havoc and destruction on the television, but then jumped when another airliner appeared out of the corner of the screen and slammed into the other World Trade Centre building. Jackson was gaping at the screen, toothpaste foam slowly making its way out of his mouth, when the elevator door slipped open and Ian stepped in, taking off his shoes before walking to Jackson and giving him a one hundred dollar bill. When the younger man didn't take it, he just dropped it on the coffee table and sat down on the couch across from Jackson.

'Not much finesse.'

'It's overkill,' said Jackson, swallowing harshly. 'It can't be over though; Pedram said they were using planes from three airports, and this would cover just one or two.'

Ian looked at the screen from behind his glasses. 'They didn't have complete information. Perhaps they'd just narrowed it down to those three airports.'

'No,' said Jackson, shaking his head as he set his toothbrush next to the one hundred dollar bill. 'There's no way they'd go this far and not go ahead and hit something in Washington, DC.'

Shrugging a bit, Ian made a move to stand, but Jackson put his hand out, not taking his eyes from the television. 'Stay.'

Like a good dog, he scooted back against the cushions again and looked over at Jackson, who was wiping his lips with the back of his wrist. 'Is this bothering you?'

'No,' Jackson very obviously lied because he knew that Ian wouldn't call him on it—that's why he liked working with Ian so much more than working with Lyna. 'I don't think this is going to be good for the organisation, that's all.'

Ian was silent and watched the television with Jackson, both deep in thought until Jackson's phone rang. He stood and walked to the kitchen where the wireless phone was waiting in its cradle and picked it up, walking out of the room just enough so that he could lean against the wall of the archway separating the two rooms.

'Rippner.'

'So you win. Would you like it wired or just deposited straight into your account?'

'Deposit it into my account,' he replied, ducking back into the kitchen. 'Have you talked to Poulain yet?'

'No, I am back in the Czech Republic,' she said quite matter-of-factly. 'Just because you don't have a day job does not mean the rest of us can quit ours.'

Somewhere in the last six years, Jackson had forgotten that Lyna was a Czech language teacher at the small private international school that he attended in Prague. Suddenly, rather than worrying about anything else, he wondered what Ian did as a day job, but his musings were cut short by Lyna.

'Why do you wonder about Poulain?'

'I think we should have stepped in to stop this attack.'

Lyna laughed mirthfully. 'Getting soft in your old age, Jack?'

'I'm not worried about the people; I'm worried about the ramifications this will have for the organisation.'

'What ever do you mean?'

'Well, the people are scared now, yes, but what about in a couple of months? Years?' he said into the receiver as he went over to the window and looked down at the ocean. 'Fear doesn't last forever, and once it fades, people become very dangerous in their need for revenge.'

'So they will take out revenge on Al-Qaeda. That does not hurt us; that just eliminates competition.'

'But Lyna—'

'Just shut up,' she spat. 'You may have more support by Poulain and have a better position on your business card, but I have been in this for much longer than you have. A big lot of good you are, anyway. You can not even kill your own self.'

Jackson narrowed his eyes. 'I was right about the date and I will be right about this. Assassinations will mean less and less because death will be just a normal day-to-day event. People will harden to it just like they have in Israel and Palestine.'

She laughed again. 'I think you overestimate the human race.'

---

'Oh my God, Lisa, where have you been?' asked a panicked roommate named Hannah as Lisa Reisert walked into her apartment in Gainesville.

Holding up her field hockey stick, she forced a smile at the other girl. 'We had an unscheduled practise. Is everything all right?'

Hannah took her by the forearm and dragged her to the living room where their two other roommates were watching the television. The two girls didn't even bother to look up when their roommates walked in but were rather engrossed in what was on the television. One of them was crying, curled up with a couch pillow held to her chest and the other one was nervously biting her nails. Lisa followed their gazes to the smoke-covered screen.

'What... what happened?'

'They don't know yet,' Hannah said. 'Two planes hit the Twin Towers and one hit the Pentagon, but—'

'What do you mean "planes?"' asked Lisa, looking with wide eyes at her roommate.

'I mean like... commercial jets,' replied Hannah.

Lisa felt like a big block of ice had lodged itself in the pit of her stomach. 'Do they know where the planes came from?'

As if the reporter had heard Lisa, she went from the normal story about what had happened so far to break in with newer news. 'We have just received confirmation that the planes that hit the World Trade Centre this morning both originated out of Boston's Logan Airport. We are not yet sure where the plane that hit the Pentagon came from, but expect to have that information shortly. Again, we would like to repeat that as of 9:45 this morning, Eastern Standard Time, all air transportation has been halted over the United States and Canada. Once all flights currently in route are grounded, all air transportation will be stopped until further notice.'

Her legs shaking, Lisa planted herself on the couch between the two roommates who were still staring at the television. They all sat in silence that was punctured only by the occasional sniffle, the four watching the television with wide eyes. At 9:59, they watched as the first building collapsed and Lisa stood quickly, going into her room and closing the door behind her. Leaning against the door, she squeezed her eyes shut and slid down the wood. She'd lied to her roommate; really, she'd met with her parents, who'd driven up from Miami that morning. Over an early breakfast, they told her that they were planning to get a divorce and that her mother would be moving back to Dallas in the next couple of weeks. Leaving the meal prematurely, she'd taken her field hockey stick and gone to the track where she ran alone for an hour.

So, already in denial about the morning's events, she had this added on to it. It felt selfish and awful, but as she curled up at the base of the door, she cried more for herself than anyone else.