Air Force One, 30,000 feet over Central Kansas

David groaned as he opened an official Air Force One airsickness bag.

"It's Air Force One, for crying out loud," said Julius, sitting beside him. "Still he gets sick," he said to Shepard, sitting across from him. He'd gotten his suit back from the Secret Service agents, though all of his weapons and wands were gone, not that he especially needed them.

"I don't feel so good," said David wearily.

Shepard was about to offer something when Julius extolled his own condition, "Look at me, huh? Like a rock."

David grew slightly green.

"Could be bad weather, could be good weather, it doesn't matter."

Shepard tried to interrupt, but could only mutely protest, knowing just how funny this little scene was, and not wanting to interrupt it.

"We could go up, we could go down," said Julius, gesturing wildly.

"We could go back, we could go forward," continued Julius, his nauseous son echoing the movements to his disservice.

"We could go side to side," continued Julius, again moving and again his son mimicking, perhaps subconsciously.

Just then David's nausea took a turn for the worse, and he got up from his chair, not wanting to be sick in front of his father, or at least wanting to be sick away from any further teasing.

As David leaves, Shepard finally says something, "I can help you with that." He then gets up himself, following David.

"What'd I say?" asked Julius as the two men went toward the front of the plane.

Shepard finally caught up with David outside the restroom, where David's sickness could just be heard through the door, "David, I've got something that can help."

David opened the door, "What?"

Shepard reached into a pocket of his suit jacket, which still looked as clean and pressed as when David had first seen him twenty-four hours before, despite their trip from Central Park to Washington, their experience at the White House, the the last few hours on Air Force One, or the rather vigorous search by the Secret Service. He extracted a small clear plastic vial with a screw-on top, "This is a potion, think of it as magical medicine. Drink it and for the next twelve hours, no nausea."

David took the vial, examining the slightly viscous red liquid inside, "This isn't going to poison me, is it?"

"It's all-natural, organic, and made by a fully accredited potions master," said Shepard.

"What's it taste like?" asked David, beginning to unscrew the lid.

"A nice subtle strawberry-kiwi," replied Shepard. It had taken him working with both Sirius and the Weasley Twins before he learned the secret of flavoring potions without them changing potency. Unlike Pompfrey, he didn't have an invested interest in encouraging his patients to not return for more.

"L'chaim," saluted David, as he poured in down his throat. He smiled as he brought the empty vial back down. "That was the best tasting medicine I've ever had."

"I'll take that as a compliment," said Shepard. "Oh, and keep the vial, it's worth five knuts redemption in Diagon Alley."

"K'nuts?" asked David.

Shepard reached behind his own ear and removed a two year old knut. "Small bronze coin, smallest coin used in Magical Europe, worth about four pence in exchange," said Shepard. Using the latest nineteen pound, eighty pence galleon exchange rate, minus the Gringotts fee. They'd gotten smarter since he'd first made his billions in eighty-one and eighty-two. "So, that's worth twenty pence, right there," he said, gesturing at the vial, the knut having disappeared whence it came during the explanation.

"Ah," said David, slipping it into the pocket of his khakis. "Seems pretty convenient, and cheap too."

"Oh, that's just the redemption value on the vial, a deposit just like with a bottle of Pepsi," said Shepard, the pair of them slowly walking back to where they'd left Julius, and passed Constance. "That was about a twenty sickle potion."

"Sickle?" asked David.

Shepard shrugged, "Seventeen Sickles to the Galleon, twenty-nine Knuts to the Sickle. Prime number divisions, so it's a bitch to make change. I think it's just short of twenty-four pounds without the exchange rate."

David looked horrified, "Twenty pounds?" He then looked inquisitive, "What's that in dollars?"

"Say a buck sixty-eight a pound, so, what … twenty-four plus … six time twenty-four is fourteen dollars forty … another eight times twenty-four is one and forty-four plus forty-eight … twenty-four plus fourteen forty plus one forty-four plus forty-eight gives you … ninety-two and forty is one and thirty-two … twenty-four, fourteen, one, and one is twenty-six and fourteen is forty … so forty dollars, thirty-two cents, give or take," said Shepard, doing the math out loud.

"Forty dollars!" exclaimed David.

"And thirty-two cents, yeah, but it's worth it for you not threatening to barf in the middle of our conversation," countered Shepard, as the pair moved back towards the center of the plane where their seats were.

"We're moving as many of our forces away from our bases as possible," said General Grey from behind an open doorway. "But we've already sustained heavy losses."

"I spoke with the Joint Chiefs before they left NORAD," said Nomzicki from the same cabin, the President's office. "They agree that we must launch a counter-offensive, with a full nuclear strike."

"Over American Soil?" asked Whitmore pointedly.

Shepard stuck his head in the cabin, "Not necessarily."

"What?" asked Whitmore.

Shepard looked to Nimzicki and Grey, "Those cruise missiles you launched earlier, were they from Cruisers or Subs?"

"Subs," said Grey.

"Well, then we target a ship that's not near one of our allies, like Iraq or Iran, we've got a couple SSBNs in the Gulf, don't we?" asked Shepard, inserting himself fully into the conversation, leaning against the wall, and smiling to Constance, forcing David to glare at him in response.

"That's not much better, nuking innocent civilians," said Whitmore.

"Most likely the ship'll be either over a destroyed city, or one that's about be be destroyed," said Shepard. "And we know from the fighters, what survived, that the smaller ships, while not destroyed by the missiles, were deflected by them."

"What good does that do us?" asked Whitmore.

"That means that the shields are more like impenetrable armor, rather than allowing the aliens to fully ignore our attacks. They're still subject to physics, no matter how much they're ignoring it with their hovering and shields," Shepard explained. "Hit the Destroyers with a big enough bang, perhaps under the edge, off-center." He conjured a simple plate with a wave of his hand, setting it to hover in mid-air, and then hit it on the underside, setting it spinning about it's center of mass.

"Flip them over?" asked Whitmore.

"Either flip them or overwhelm whatever inertial dampeners they've got … if they've got them. If we don't flip them like a turtle, they'll be scrambled like an egg," said Shepard.

"It might work," said Nimzicki, nodding slightly. "I don't trust him, but it's a good idea."

"No, no, you're going to use nuclear weapons. You're going to kill them and us at the same time," said David, interjecting for the first time. "You use nukes, and then everyone else who has nukes is going to fire them."

"May I remind you," said Grey over David's rant, "That you are a guest here?"

"Then there's nuclear fallout, haven't you ever heard of a nuclear winter?" continued David.

Shepard kept silent, content that his input wasn't need for the players to play the next part all on their own.

"It's the end of life as we know it," said David. Constance tried to silence him, "Don't you hear what they're talking about? Think about it."

"Sit down and shut up!" shouted Nimzicki. As much as he distrusted Shepard, David flat out annoyed him.

Julius, having heard the argument, and knowing how his David loved to argue about the environment, had advanced up to the more forward cabin. "Hey, hey!" he interjected, "Don't' tell him to shut up! "

The cabin was silent.

"You wouldn't be here were it not for my David," ranted Julius. "You'd all be dead now if it wasn't for my David."

"I helped," interjected Shepard quietly, but Julius continued to rant.

"None of you did anything to prevent this," the older Jew said, pointing around the room, though being careful not to point at his son, his former daughter-in-law, or the man who'd gotten them out of New York.

"There was nothing we could do," said Grey with a shake of his head. "We were totally unprepared for this."

"Ahh, don't give me 'unprepared'," dismissed Julius. The cabin was divided between the Levinsons (and ex-Levinsons); the President, Secretary of Defense, and Head of the Joint Chiefs; and Shepard, a now mute observer.

"Come on Julius," said Constance, trying to stop the rant.

"It was when? Nineteen, what…" began Julius, snapping his fingers to help him remember.

"Forty-seven," interjected Shepard.

"Right, Nineteen forty-seven, yeah, you had that … spaceship," said Julius, to looks of dismay from all but Nimzicki and Shepard. The former expressed worry, while the later expressed unabashed glee.

"Dad, no, dad," David tried to stop his father from embarrassing himself further.

"That thing that you found," continued Julius, as the Present let out an exasperated sigh and sat back down. "In New Mexico."

"Dad!"

"Where was that?"

"Roswell," suggested Shepard.

"Yeah, Roswell, New Mexico," said Julius triumphantly.

"Dad, don't do this," cautioned David.

"Julius, calm down," tried Constance.

"You had the spaceship!" insisted Julius as Grey sat down as well, both he and Whitmore putting their face in their palms. "And you had the bodies. They were all locked up in a bunker!"

"Dad," said David weakly.

"Where was that?" asked Julius, looking from David over one shoulder, and Shepard over the other.

"Area Fifty-One," said Shepard, trying to hide a smile, as he saw Nimzicki practically lose his composure, the complete opposite of the President and General Grey.

"Area fifty-one, right? Area fifty-one!" insisted Julius. "You knew then!" he explained accusingly, "And you did nothing!"

Whitemore raised his hand in objection, standing, "Sir."

"Groom Lake," said Shepard confidently.

"What?" asked Whitmore.

"Groom Lake, Area Fifty-One of the Nevada Test Grounds, Dreamland," said Shepard, speaking up once more. "Home to the development of the F-117 and B-2 stealth aircraft, likely from materials recovered from the apparently radar absorptive alien ships."

Whitemore shook head head, "Regardless of what you may have head in the tabloids…"

"Sir?" asked Nimzicki.

"Al?"

"He may not be … entirely … wrong, either of them," admitted the former head of the National Security Agency.

"What?" asked Whitmore.

"Which part?" asked David.