Maggie might not have bat hearing or the nose of a bloodhound, but she did have a genius level IQ. Henry Griffin could run, but he couldn't hide. Not that it was so incredibly hard to find him. There was only one place all of them seemed to gravitate towards when they wanted to be alone.

She wasn't surprised to find him in his boss's office in the Doum rooms. Henry appeared to be absorbed in whatever it was he was reading, but she wasn't really surprised when he said without looking up.

"Shouldn't you be in class Maggie."

She crossed her arms over her chest and glared at him.

"How do you always know it's me? And never mind, that's beside the point. Where did you go after the ball Henry?"

Her tone left no doubt that she was still angry with him and that if he valued his manly parts it might behoove him to answer quickly. Henry liked to live dangerously so he stayed silent.

She stalked forward and only stopped when she was standing next to him. She poked him in the chest with her finger.

"I asked you a question Griffin." He caught her wrist and looked up at her. She sucked in a startled breath, her pulse beating wildly.

"You smell like tree tea oil and vanilla with a hint of lime, that's how I always know it's you. No one else smells like you do."

He caressed her pulse with his thumb and Maggie felt herself blush all the way to the tips of her ears. She tried to pull away but he held fast.

"T-That's not what I…Henry stop t-trying to distract me. I want to know where you were."

He narrowed his eyes and focused on the shirt wrapped around her palm. "You're hurt."

She rolled her eyes. "I accidentally sliced my hand open on my locker. It's no big deal." He frowned, opened the bottom desk drawer, and took out the first aid kit.

He pushed back a little and never releasing her hand he pointed with his chin at the desk top. "Have a seat."

She tried to tug her hand free again and he simply looked at her, bemused. She huffed. "Fine, if that's how you're going to be about it." She perched on top of the desk with all the finesse of a petulant five-year-old being sent to time-out.

Henry bit back his smirk. With deft movements he opened the first aid kit, took out a bottle of peroxide, and placed it on the desk top next to her hip. Gently, he unwrapped her hand. She hissed slightly when he pulled the cotton away from the wound.

He caressed her pulse point soothingly and Maggie couldn't suppress her shiver. He had no idea what that simple gesture did to her every time he did it. It was meant to comfort her, but for as long as she could remember all it seemed to do was make her body feel uncomfortably hot. Her skin was extremely sensitive there and his thumbs had calluses on them that made the pads rough. That simple gesture made her womb clench and caused butterflies to dance in her stomach. It was truly pathetic how much she loved it when he touched her like this.

She was brought back to reality when Henry said. "I'm sorry Maggie, but this is going to hurt." He poured peroxide into the open wound. Maggie screeched and he quickly started blowing softly on the cut to help take the sting away. She felt her eyes watering.

"A little warning would be nice next time, Griffin." He winced, chastised. She'd reverted back to calling him by his last name. It meant she was still pissed. He quickly but gently put some antiseptic ointment on the cut and used a gauze pad and some gauze tape to bandage the wound. He pushed away, released her, and started putting the supplies away. He wouldn't meet her eyes.

Maggie felt bereft for a moment and then reminded herself that she was still mad at him. "You still haven't answered my question."

He sighed and turned back to the book he was reading. "And I'm not going to. I don't want you involved Maggie. I'm sorry but I can't tell you where I was. It's too dangerous for both you and Jasper."

"Too dangerous," her voice was low and lethal. A sane man would have run. Henry stayed where he was. "Too dangerous…Henry you-you troglodyte! Since I've met you I've been held at gun point, held hostage at knife point, been almost eviscerated, poisoned, crushed, and pureed and you have the audacity to tell me that this is too dangerous for me to be involved in?"

He looked up at her, his hazel eyes sincere. "Yes. I'm sorry Maggie."

She poked his chest again. "You listen to me Henry Griffin. You have no right to keep me out of this and if you think for one nanosecond that I'm just going to stay out, then you don't know me half as well as you think you do. If you don't tell me where you were and what you were doing Friday night right this instance, I am going to drive over to Michael's house and make him tell me what you're involved in. After all, I already know that you wanted to question his aunt. I can follow a trail of clues just as well as you can."

His whole body went stiff. "You're not going anywhere near Stansville."

She tilted her head to the side and gave him a wicked little half smile. Her eyes were flashing. "Watch me, jungle boy."

She moved to jump down off of the desk but Henry was too quick. He jumped up, wrapped his arms around her, and pinned her to the desk top. Much to her disgust, she felt a tremor of fear dance along her spine along with a tremor of excitement.

"Let me go," she growled. He met her angry eyes with his own equally angry ones.

"No," he replied. She started to struggle and push against his chest.

"Dammit Henry, release me right now before I give you a demonstration of what I learned recently in self defense class."

He shook his head and Maggie lifted her knee. He dodged at the last second, saving little Henry from a crushing blow. He stared at her, stunned.

"You were going to knee me in the…" He shook his head, his eyes filled with frustration and helpless anger. "Why Maggie? Why are you being this way? Why can't you just let it go?" His voice had a pleading note that she'd never heard before. She shook her head and felt tears well.

She blinked them back and growled in frustration. "Because I am not helpless! I will never, ever feel helpless again, do you understand! And you keep shutting me. I-I thought you trusted me. I thought w-we were a team—all of us. But you won't let me—let us, help you. Why won't you let us help you?"

Henry took a shuddering breath, leaned his forehead against hers, and shut his eyes. He opened them, stared at Maggie, and brushed her tears away with his thumbs. He sighed, long and deep, as if the weight of the universe rested on his shoulders.

"Henry?"

He closed his eyes again but didn't move away. "I'm sorry Maggie. Of course I trust you and I'm sorry I was shutting you out. It's just…It's Stansville…he makes me crazy. I've never had this—this kind of rage inside me. It's there now, all the time, every time I think about what he almost…" He abruptly pulled away from her and sank back down into the desk chair in defeat. He looked up at her looking…lost. It broke her heart.

She gazed back at him stunned, silent, and bleeding for him.

"Those times before I was always there to protect you and the one time I wasn't you were almost…Maggie, it's eating me alive and now he's connected to this and I don't want him anywhere near you. I just want to protect you, why won't you ever let anyone protect you?"

His voice broke a little and Maggie felt her heart melt. That was what this was all about? Henry thought he'd failed her and now he was being overprotective of her? It all made a weird kind of sense. After she'd broken up with Michael, Henry had become her shadow. He'd followed her everywhere until the day she'd finally lost it with him and told him to leave her alone. She had thought at the time that it was because he'd lost faith in her ability to protect herself; when all along it had been because he was beating himself up because he wasn't there to save her.

She pushed off the desk, knelt down in front of him, and took his face in her hands.

"Henry I do let you protect me. But wrapping me in bubble wrap and putting me away in a closet is not going to do either of us any good. You also have to trust that I can take care of myself. What Michael tried to do to me…was horrible, and yes it scared me, and made me more cautious, but he didn't break me. He will never break me. You have to let me face my own demons."

He gripped her hands, pulled them away from his face, and held them tightly in his lap.

"I want to kill him Maggie. I want to kill him with my bare hands. I've never felt this kind of rage before. I never thought myself capable of it. And it won't go away. It just keeps churning. I've tried every meditation I can think of—but it won't go away."

"Why?" She whispered. "Why won't it go away?"

He looked at her, bleak and tortured. "Because it was you. He tried to hurt you."

She nodded like she understood and he looked down at their entwined hands again. He took a deep, cleansing breath, stood up; forcing her to stand with him. He released her hands and paced to the other side of the room, running his hands through his hair in agitation.

"You're right Maggie. We're a team and frankly I could use your help right now."

She crossed her arms and cocked an eyebrow at him. "Does that mean you're done with all this macho trying-to-suffocate-me-in-a-padded-room-to-keep-fragile-little-me-from-being-hurt bull crap?"

He paused. Despite her jesting tone he knew she was serious. He answered honestly.

"I don't know Maggie. I make no guarantees. You are too important to me and Stansville has me on edge. I don't know what sort of game he and his aunt are playing and that makes me nervous. Even though Dr. Riker was pretty forthright when I questioned her Friday night, I still got the feeling she was hiding something."

"So that's where you were. You were questioning Dr. Riker. Why didn't you just say so?"

"Because if what she told me is true, then this world is in a great deal of trouble."

Maggie frowned in confusion. "Why? What did she tell you?" Henry stopped pacing and met her gaze. He looked serious and foreboding.

"She told me that despite what the Medical Examiner would say, Dr. Sorreson's death was no accident. He was murdered by a centuries old cult that has only one objective."

Maggie gazed back solemnly. "And what objective is that?"

"Armageddon."