"Attention, this is Director Tagg." Claire paused at the voice. They'd not been called into the city after breakfast, and rumors were flying around. The Nine were in the city. A new Endbringer had been located.

Now we find out…

"We are transitioning from rescue to recovery and salvage. This has been a shitty job, but you all have literally saved thousands. Thank you. Team leaders, report to your transport sections for return to your respective units."

And that was it.

Four days' work and now they were… Claire looked around at the rest of the Wards and the rest of the personnel who were now gathering around the buses, helicopters and other vehicles that would carry them back to their homes.

The Bay's contingent had Claire and thus needed no other transport.

"Hey, Claire." Claire looked up at Jim. He looked terrible. More terrible than Claire. He'd been out there and was looking back at the city.

"Hey, Jim," Claire said, reaching up and cupping one cheek. "I guess it's time to go."

"There could still be a few hundred people." Jim stared. "Maybe I could…"

"Tagg wouldn't let you," Jackson said. He followed Jim's gaze. "There comes a point where you have to accept that well, miracles may happen, but you can't call 'em on tap." Claire watched as Jim just stood, then clenched his hands into fists. She put her small hand over his.

"Jim," Claire said. "We can't save everyone."

"Right," Jim said. He glanced to his right and nodded. "Wait a minute."

Claire stood behind as Jim walked over to where Sophia and some other juvenile detainees were standing by their guards, waiting for the bus that would take them to Baton Rouge. There they would go to their final destinations. Their bright orange jumpsuits let everyone know who they were, but Jim didn't hesitate.

"Phase," he said. "Good job. You helped a lot."

"Yeah, sure," Sophia said. "Better than sitting in Juvie."

"Do you have anyone… Back home you want me to talk to?"

"Nah. They barely even send letters to me. Fuck'em." A guard motioned and Sophia smirked at Jim. "Have fun playing Piggy's games." Then she glanced at the bus, and a flicker of something passed over her face, but she said nothing else as she walked onto the bus.

"Would it kill her to be pleasant?" Claire asked.

"She's not in a real goo—"

Claire glanced up at Jim, silencing him with her look. "Jim, she put herself in that place."

"Yeah."

And then it was time to gather the group. Amelia was there, her armor actually walking behind her. She'd dismantled her constructs under the gimlet eye of some PRT troopers. She was talking with Vicky.

"You know, I was thinking, what about a living wall around the city—I could incorporate a root system that could drain water and keep Leviathan from doing what he did here to the Bay…"

"Isn't it hard to get permission for that?" Vicky frowned. "I mean, city-scale tinker constructs…"

"Maybe…" Amelia paused. "But I could do up a proposal!"

Next to her, Vicky glanced over at Gallant. Her boyfriend shook his head and Vicky turned back to Amelia.

"That's… Yeah, a proposal would be good!"

Behind Vicky, Claire saw refrigerated container trucks driving past, along with big earth movers.

The dead would be preserved until they could be identified, then buried in mass graves, actually giant above-ground crypts. Before long, those crypts and the single obelisk monument would be the only sign that New Orleans had ever existed here.

But they couldn't do anything about that.

And with that, she opened the portal and the exhausted team returned home.

They ate, were debriefed, and then put on mandatory two day downtime—along with some required interviews with PRT psychologists. Claire wasn't certain how that would work. You were supposed to be honest with them and right now, she and Jim had a lot of things they couldn't talk about.

But even though they had plenty of free time…

Claire felt tired. Nobody wanted to see a movie or get together, because they might have come back to the Bay in a second, but it was…

Too fast. Claire looked around the streets. There were some people from New Orleans, but most of them were still at the various refugee centers. There were girls talking on the Boardwalk, a family walking along, the parents swinging the little girl between them.

Jim flinched at that, looked away.

"It's okay," Claire softly said.

"Yeah." Jim shook his head. "Just reminded me of something."

And so they soon found themselves back home. In bed.

Together.

The movies lied. Claire thought. According to them, especially the NC-17 version of "Braves of the Rocky Mountain's," stress resulted in the woman saying she had to reaffirm that life was worth living and then about forty-five minutes of nonstop sex ensued.

Blinky had made them eat, but hadn't asked them what they had done, they had tried to watch a show… And then they'd come to the same conclusion and gone to bed. Five minutes later, she and Jim were fast asleep.

But now she'd awoken. It was nine o'clock, according to the clock. Only a few hours had passed. Why am I…

Right. Jim. Jim was stiff, a snarl on his face even though his eyes were closed. Trolls had so many different subspecies, and Jim was a half troll, but going stiff and bearing his teeth was a pretty good sign he was having a bad dream, but not a full nightmare. Claire had seen some screaming Jim Nightmares on the trip to New Jersey. Those, you just let him work out, because waking him up wasn't the wisest idea. He hadn't had any of those since they'd started…

Well, he hadn't had any of those recently. Clair lay her hand on the side of his face, held it there. Jim twitched… and slowly relaxed. Claire didn't say anything else, then got up and pulled her robe on around her body, quickly writing a note to Jim that she was getting something, and would be back soon.

Claire put her slippers on and then called a portal, and moments later, she was elsewhere.

The slope was wooded, just above the college,it had once been a park, but was now deserted, a few concrete benches reminders of better times. Down below, there were night classes going on, and she could see the student center, full of light, people chatting and laughing.

Even if I wasn't in my night things… Well, it was kind of odd trying to stick with a student body that started at 18 and went up from there, especially when you were "The Girl Who Stopped Leviathan."

God, that's right PR wants me to talk about that, but that means thinking about Scion and nobody wants me to have…

Claire bit her lip. And that brought her to why she was here. She sat down on a little bench.

It wrecked me, and I'm scared of it. But I'm not going to let it win… They had beaten the Silver Entity. And she would beat Scion. She hated Scion more than Gunmar and she would beat it. Starting here.

She looked into her mind, saw the image, waited, and then gasped as she was pulled down into its memories. Patterns, cycles, death and Death and DEATH AND—

Claire pulled away, gasping, sobbing, tears once again running down her face. Hating scion wasn't enough. It didn't help her face those horrible memories.

All those people. All those poor, poor people—

"Not many would think of a silicon based life-form that speaks in gamma-ray emissions as people."

Claire couldn't help it, she jumped back, calling her blades to her, the shadow energy forming, while she reminded herself how stupid she'd been to come here in her fucking nightgown and robe!

"It's okay!" the man said to her raising his hands. "Sorry, but you were talking out loud." He chuckled and held up a horn. "I come here to practice. Quietly, mind you. It isn't time to blow my horn, not as loud as I'll need to sound it, one day."

"Oh, I'm um, sorry," Claire said. "But I was just… I have a story I'm writing."

"Ah," the man smiled at her. "Such a good story that you were crying and shivering."

"Oh yeah…" Claire paused. "But they would be, wouldn't they? If we weren't talking about, um stories."

"What?"

"People. Would it matter what they looked like? As long as they loved?"

"I'd say no. Love is the core."

"Yeah." Claire said. "But you can't love everything." Because I can't even imagine loving Scion. Or thinking it's anything more than a monster that deserves death.

"Oh? What can't you love?" The man smiled. "I mean, you're a young girl, so we won't hold you to the standards of oh, say, John of Patmos, but what can't you love?"

"A monster. I can't tell you about it, but… It's worse than anything. Worse than the endbringers." Claire clamped her mouth shut. She didn't even know who this guy was. If he'd been Tattletale, she'd probably said more than enough to…

"Your story." The man looked at her and for a moment there was something in his eyes. Claire couldn't meet them. "It's a creative story. But well, let's talk about a villain—the scion of a species that over the course of years demanded that they live forever. Live in this universe. Nothing else mattered, and so they gradually ended their souls. Became machines, nattering their way through the universe, destroying everything they met on a doomed crusade."

"Why shouldn't I hate them?" Claire muttered.

"Well, your character might ask that. And I suppose your wise representative of the higher powers—you have one of those in your story, yes?"

"Um, yeah, sure!" Claire said. Oh thank God, I'm fooling him.

"Well, that wise man might suggest that you can't hate the great enemy—because there's nothing there to hate anymore. No more than a man hates a scorpion or virus. If you could hate them, well that might be cause to try to redeem them…" The man put the trumpet to his lips and blew out a soft tune that literally brought tears to Claire's eyes. She'd never heard something so sad, so… mournful. "…But now, the fireplace has gone dead. There are no coals you can breathe on and bring back to life. Just ash to be blown away and bagged up. And you don't hate ash—you just mourn for what it could have been."

Claire stared at the man, then slowly thought about her memories of Scion. Thought about the memories of all those lost civilizations that had once burned so brightly. The deaths, the endless deaths…

But they had loved. And they had souls.

And that made them vaster than Scion, however ancient and powerful he was, could ever be. Claire took a deep breath. Once. Twice.

It hurt. The memories hurt, and tears rolled down her face. But she didn't go hysterical. She could endure.

"You might want to get some sleep," the man said. "After all, looks like you came up with the solution to your writing issue."

"I, um, did." Claire said. She did feel tired. "I'll go back now. Do you need me—"Wait, how did he get up here? The reason the old park was more or less deserted was that the walkways had been washed out years ago.

"No, I'm fine." He chuckled. "It's a fine night for some music, and there's people sleeping in the city that could use it when the nightmares come upon them."

"I…" she opened her portal, then looked back at the man. Somehow, she hadn't gotten a real good look at him. "What's your name?"

"My friends call me Gabriel."

And with that, Claire was back home, utterly exhausted. She tossed her robe off and went back to bed. Jim was sleeping, relaxed.

And for the rest of the night, Claire's sleep was untroubled.

But she did have one last thought.

How did he know they talked in gamma-rays?