Author's Note: I'm dreadfully sorry about the long delay in getting this chapter up, but getting it written was like pulling teeth! Dementia had different ideas about how she wanted it to play out, and couldn't seem to settle on one until today. So thank you all, readers and reviewers and followers alike, for being patient and waiting. There'll be one more chapter to go, before it's on to the next story! And a special thanks to Karen B. Jones, whose humorous review of the last chapter gave my Muse an idea for a line that had been plaguing me (for a variety of reasons). I think this hit the nail on the head! :)

Part Five

As Minion had arranged with the Thurmers to meet at the Lair around three the following afternoon, he and Roxanne had a chance to catch up on their sleep, even fitfully. When she returned to the guest room where her husband was still sound asleep, the trio of brainbots on watch had reassured her that all was well, there had been no change.

Splinter in particular seemed to want to reassure her, odd behavior that she chalked up to the little bot wanting to make a good impression on Mommy in his first assignment, working with her. She patted his dome and smiled, wishing she could understand these older bots as well as she could the newer ones; it had taken her time to gain a decent level of actual communication with Pinky, and that didn't seem to carry over to all the other bots of the earlier generations. Splinter appeared pleased by this indication of understanding on her part. He dutifully returned to his post as Roxanne slipped into bed, carefully snuggled up to Megamind's side, and eventually fell into an exhausted sleep.

Though it wasn't the most restorative rest they'd ever experienced, both she and Minion managed to sleep in later than usual, largely because their bodies knew they needed it to keep functioning. The reporter had wakened maybe five minutes before her quasi-brother-in-law tapped at the door and entered quietly, not wanting to disturb her should she still be asleep. "Any changes?" he asked, bringing in a tray with a breakfast Madeleine had thoughtfully prepared.

Roxanne shook her head, an answer as well as an attempt to clear the sleep cobwebs from her mind. "Not unless the monitors say so, I haven't been up long enough to check." While Minion went to have a look at the various readouts, Roxanne lifted herself onto her elbows to kiss her still unconscious husband's cheek. She thought for a moment that she saw a movement under his closed eyelids, perhaps a prelude to them opening, but if he had moved, the moment passed as quickly as it had come.

At the foot of the bed, where the screens for the systems monitoring Megamind's conditions had been set up, Splinter hovered at Minion's side, making the same sounds he'd given to Roxanne last night. "I have no idea what he's trying to say," she admitted. "He doesn't seem upset, so I figured it was a 'no change' thing."

"Pretty much," the ichthyoid confirmed. "That's the sound he makes when he's reporting on the status of program diagnostics he's running, sort of a 'system operating normally' situation. If nothing changed in the status on the monitors since last night — and it hasn't — that's what I'd expect from him."

Pinky came and took the breakfast tray from him while he checked the readouts, then the IV. The brainbot settled the tray on the bed so that Roxanne could comfortably eat and see both her husband and Minion. "I'd rather hear that things are improving, but I guess not getting any worse is okay." While Pinky ever-so-carefully set down the tray, the reporter reached over and gently caressed Megamind's cheek, which to her relief was still warm and soft and its normal healthy lavender-tinged sky blue. She had an odd fear that if he were slipping away from them, he'd start to grow as cool to the touch as his coloring suggested, but so far, no change. It was silly, but she'd take any relief she could get at this point.

She glanced at the clock on the far wall of the room to see what time it was. Half past eleven, and from the light filtering through the windows high on the wall to the right of the bed, she knew it wasn't night. She loosed a little sigh. "The Thurmers are coming at three, right?"

Minion nodded as he finished changing the hydration IV. "Just the warden and his four children, not the entire family. They're really the ones who have to decide what they want to do next." His flat, fishy face pinched slightly in a small frown. "I really hope they don't want to give up right away. I just know Sir will come out of this, and it'll break his heart if he finds out he's too late to help Mrs. Thurmer. Not to mention what it might do to his self-confidence. All this knowledge he has at his disposal, now, and if the first time he tries to do something important with it, it turns out to be all for nothing..." The piscine couldn't have looked sadder had he tried.

"It wouldn't be for nothing, Minion," Roxanne said, trying to be encouraging even though she herself felt little of it. "If he wakes up knowing how to heal this kind of brain damage, he can find ways to make it possible for other people to do it, so that a lot of other people can be helped, and if they can heal this, they could heal almost anything. That isn't nothing, not by a long shot. Though," she added with her own touch of sadness, "it might've been better if he hadn't wanted to learn this to save someone who was almost a mother to him. That would be the real problem, if he wakes up and can't help Mrs. Thurmer because her family decided to let her go. He'd feel like they'd lost faith in him, like they didn't believe it was worth the wait because they didn't trust that he could do it."

Minion flittered his fins as a human would wring their hands in nervousness. "That's what I'm afraid of. If I had any way of figuring out exactly what went wrong and just when Sir will finally wake up, I'd do everything I can to talk them into waiting for however long it takes. But it's not right to make them keep hanging indefinitely."

Splinter came up and nudged Minion's arm in what looked like the way a faithful dog might nuzzle its master, sensing his upset. He bowged several times, in what seemed like a very confident, supportive manner. "Three forty-five," the ichthyoid interpreted for Roxanne. "Yeah, that's about how long we have until they arrive, Splinter — though your internal clock must be off a bit, I'll have to see about adjusting it later."

Finished with the IV, he collected the spent bag with a tiny sigh of his own. "Have Pinky take the tray back to the kitchen when you're finished," he told Roxanne. "I'm going to check in with Mr. Wayne, give him an update on the situation."

Roxanne nodded soberly. "He's been a brick through all this, taking on his old job full time so you and Mykaal don't have to worry about the city. If I didn't believe the two of them are genuinely friends before, I'd be convinced now. Wayne's even been going out of his way to give Megamind as much credit as he can for how secure the city is these days, and making sure people feel sympathy for their official Defender being 'under the weather.' Though that excuse won't hold much longer, not unless we turn 'a case of the flu' into something more serious."

Minion agreed. "The last time I talked to Mr. Wayne, he suggested that maybe he could say he was giving Megamind a break until after the holidays, seeing that he'd just been sick. I think he was going to suggest that as a sort of Christmas present for both of you, anyway."

Roxanne perked up a bit at that. "He did? That's sweet of him, I know how hard it is to buy things for a guy who has more money than God, or even just Walmart. If — when Mykaal wakes up, when all this is over, I'm sure he'd appreciate a break. I know I will, even if I have to take him up on his offer to start a whole new network just for me, so I can be my own boss and set my own hours."

"I think you really ought to take him up on the offer," was the piscine's honest opinion. "You're much better than any of your so-called colleagues, because you really, truly do care about people and getting the truth out there. Not like all these other networks that just want to make money, and will say anything or broadcast anything if it pays enough for themselves and their cronies, and keeps their business as usual going. You could start a whole new kind of reporting: the real stories, not the ones skewed or slanted or prettied up to fit someone's private agenda. It'd be great!"

Roxanne waved her bagel at him, smiling crookedly. "Don't you get started on that!" she warned. "The idea sounds good — and it's tempting, I admit — but it'd be a hell of a lot of work, most of it the kind I don't like to do. Maybe I'd let him set me up with my own webcast or something, but not an entire TV network. I'd wind up doing administrative monkey work, not reporting and research and interviewing, the things I really love.

"Besides," she added more gently, expression softening as she looked at the obliviously sleeping Megamind, "I'm beginning to think that there might be even more important work for me to do. I always thought that Mykaal and I were a team as hero and reporter, but just the few hours I spent helping him by doing research before this started made me think. If he wakes up and everything he wants to do actually happens... This is going to change things, Minion, not just for him or me or you, but for the whole world. And if someone who cares for him more than for just the things he can do isn't there to run interference for him and find ways to present things that won't either freak people out or bring them pounding on the doors, demanding he work more and more miracles for them..."

She stopped to take a breath, shaking her head. "There are more important things than being a star reporter for a big network," she said, brushing her bangs from her eyes. "Being someone who loves him and who will find ways to help him achieve his own dreams and protect him from exploitation... You did that for him when he was trying to conquer the city. I think now it's my turn to step in and do it before the world finds out what he's really capable of doing and tries to conquer him with their demands."

Minion's answering smile was gentle, despite his fierce teeth. "You'd do a wonderful job, too, Mrs. Roxanne, I'm sure of it. I guess we'll have to wait and see what Sir wants to do about it, when he wakes up."

The way they were both adamantly saying when rather than if, Roxanne was beginning to suspect showed their doubt just as effectively. She deliberately avoided making an issue of it. "I'll go clean up as soon as I'm finished here. Is there anything on today's schedule that I can work on from here until the Thurmers arrive?"

The fish's smile faded. "Yes, we have call everyone we called last week about delaying the Christmas party and let them know it's going to be cancelled. Even if Sir woke up right now and had everything done for Mrs. Thurmer today, it's getting too close to think about throwing a big party. People will be wanting to finish their own preparations for the holiday, and with all that's been happening — or not happening — here, I haven't gotten enough done to possibly be ready before Christmas Eve. And I don't think postponing it again until New Years or something would be a good idea."

The unspoken thought — fear, to be honest — that they would have to postpone indefinitely or forever hung thickly in the air. Roxanne's nod was equally heavy, but pragmatic. "That's probably the best idea. Even if he woke up this instant, I doubt Mykaal would feel much like partying. He's going to hate the fact that something went wrong."

She glanced at the IV; movement in the drip through the line had caught her eye. "Have you started the nutrients, yet?"

Minion shook his head, fins a-flutter. "I thought I'd do that after the warden and his family leave. Seeing one line looks like just a precaution; two might be too disturbing, look too serious, remind them of Mrs. Thurmer and... well, you know."

She did. And so, they continued to watch and wait.

Roxanne was relieved that they didn't need to explain what had happened to the friends and family who had been invited to a party that now had to be cancelled, not postponed. Wayne's cover story of Megamind being under the weather had already reached them, and though some suspected that "the flu" might actually be a way of saying he'd been hurt while working on something at the Lair and didn't want to embarrass himself by admitting it in public, they still knew how much it sucked to be sick or injured during a time of year when many people were celebrating and having fun. They all wished him a swift recovery and meant it sincerely.

Some of the calls had been quick, others much longer, especially since Roxanne had fielded the calls to those of her personal friends and family members who'd been invited. She took the chance to do a few extra minutes of catching up with them to make the hours of waiting go by more quickly. The ploy worked; when she finished the last of her calls, it was almost three o'clock, time for the Thurmer family to be arriving.

They were running behind schedule due to traffic between the downtown and the old industrial area in which the Lair was located, but when they finally arrived, about a half hour late, Minion went to escort them into the living quarters. Roxanne tidied the room and did what she could to make sure that Megamind was comfortably tucked in, so that it was clear that he was merely sleeping rather than sick or dying. She studied his face after adjusting the pillows under the enormous blue head, and sighed.

"If you'd just wake up now, sweetie, this would all be so much easier," she told him as she gently caressed his face. He still looked perfectly healthy, if also perfectly dead to the world, and she wished something would change, anything, just to give them a sign that he would be returning to them soon, not lost forever in this limbo of somnolent unlife. But his only answer was the movement of his breathing, the same regular inhalations and exhalations that they'd been watching for well over a week, now.

Roxanne's sigh was heavier with resignation. "Guess not. I don't suppose you're seeing anything new on the monitors, either, Splinter?"

The brainbot gave a series of bowgs and chirping noises much like those Minion had interpreted that morning. "System operating normally, three forty-five," the reporter said, winning a bouncing bowg that was the common brainbot equivalent of an affirmative nod. She smiled wryly. "Well, if the system that's operating normally is your Daddy, I suppose that's a good thing. But Minion's right about needing to fix your internal clock, sounds to me like you're stuck—" Something else suddenly occurred to her. "Or are you trying to give us some sort of system code? Like a 400 error?"

She couldn't tell if Splinter's answer was yes or no or something else entirely, as the sounds of voices and footsteps from the corridor heralded the arrival of Minion and the Thurmers. Figuring that if Splinter was reporting an error, it couldn't be a significant one since he was still insisting that systems were operating normally, Roxanne put it out of her thoughts for now.

She was standing near the monitors at the foot of the bed when the door opened and their guests entered with Minion; she tried her best to give them a convincing smile of welcome. The retired warden she knew well, of course, and though she was less familiar with his four children, she was fairly certain she knew which was which. The eldest, the sandy-haired Lisa McCormack, was about five years older than Mykaal, and had been quite happy as a stay at home mom after her first child had been born, giving up her part-time work as a travel agent in Naperville, Illinois. Dark-haired Elliot, two years younger than his sister with a home in Fairborn, Ohio, had been a specialist of some technical sort in the Air Force, until he retired from active duty just over a year ago. Their younger brother, Andrew, worked here in Metro City, though Roxanne couldn't recall his field; sandy-brown of hair, bright-eyed, and of a generally cheerful demeanor, he was the same age as Megamind, and had been born with severe curvature of the spine, a condition the blue genius had already been at work learning how to correct before Emily had had her stroke. Marcia Schaumberg, the youngest by two years and dark haired like Elliot, also lived in the area, and shared a dental practice with her husband in one of the southern suburbs.

Ever the reporter, Roxanne remembered these factual details of the five people whom Minion escorted into the room. But today, they were not the embodiment of those details but simply five human beings, clearly worn and exhausted by the stress of the past week, people struggling to find some kind of answers, some kind of balance in a situation that was pulling them in all directions at once.

She thought how she would feel in their shoes, how she might react if Megamind had been the one struck down by a stroke and she had been offered a possibility for his recovery that seemed to be slipping farther away with each passing minute. She thought she knew how she would choose, then realized she didn't know at all. She loved her husband enough to want to keep him with her forever, to grasp at any and all straws of hope for as long as she could — and yet, she also loved him enough to want to release him from suffering or from an undead limbo, if hope became no more than wishful thinking that delayed the inevitable.

She couldn't choose for these people, nor could she force them to the choice she wanted them to make. She couldn't do it, if for no other reason than that before long, she might be the one faced with a similar dark decision, should Megamind's coma prove to be permanent.

She was about to move away and let Minion do all the talking when Warden Thurmer came and put one hand on her arm — gently, like a caring father comforting a distraught child. "I'm sorry we're so late," he apologized. "Traffic was unbelievable, and I got turned around once, trying to find the road out here. Stupid, since I've driven it often enough before. How's Mykaal doing today?"

He was being polite, Roxanne knew, since she'd heard Minion give him the report that morning, but far be it from her to rebuff his kindness. "The same. He's not getting any worse, he's not waking up, he just... keeps sleeping."

"You're sure he wasn't hurt by whatever he did?" Andrew asked, limping over to get a better look at the monitors displaying what information they could about the ex-villain's condition.

Roxanne remembered then that Andrew was a nurse in one of the city-sponsored clinics that offered help to the poor and disabled — a noble profession, given his own physical handicaps. Minion provided the answer to his question. "As sure as we can be, Mr. Andy," the piscine assured him. "All his vital signs are completely normal; the only thing unusual is the level of synaptic activity, and the fact that he won't wake up. This is the prototype of the system Sir designed to replace the old brain scan monitor in the prison's special isolation cell. The solid white indicates an extremely high level of activity, more than even this system is capable of handling, I think, that's why we're not getting any real detail to it. He's been like this ever since I brought the equipment in, after his teaching sessions ended and he didn't wake up as he should." The tone of his voice made it clear that Minion somehow blamed himself for this.

"I'm sure you must be right about him just needing time to heal from an information overload," Roxanne assured her quasi-brother-in-law. "He's never tried to do so much so fast, this way, so he couldn't've known how he'd handle it — and neither could you."

"He doesn't look sick, or hurt," Lisa noted, having been studying the blue alien, whom she had only seen close-up in the flesh once before, just after he'd begun his work as a hero. "If I didn't know better, I'd think he's playing some kind of trick, the way he's smiling. It almost looks like he's hiding something."

The reporter's own smile was wry. "We already thought of that. He might try pulling a stunt like that on just Minion and me, but he knows how important this is. He wouldn't do it to all of you."

Marcia clicked her tongue at her sister. "It's not a trick, Lisa, I've seen that sort of look on the faces of people Tim and I have to put under with nitrous oxide for dental surgery. The gas gives them a happy feeling, it's not real, but it's nicer than feeling the pain or anxiety."

She glanced from Megamind to Roxanne and Minion. "This teaching process doesn't involve any drugs, does it? The coma might be a reaction to them, if he's been drugged."

But Minion was most emphatic, his entire little body moving in an indication of the negative. "Sir doesn't like using drugs of any kind if he can avoid it, especially the kinds that cause drowsiness or cloud your thinking. That's very important to him, being able to think clearly. The Teacher induces a state of sleep, but nothing like a drug, and it's never been harmful. Both Mrs. Roxanne and I have used it, and it certainly never caused us any harm."

Warden Thurmer sighed heavily. "But the two of you never tried to rush things, did you?" From his tone of voice he was already aware of the answer.

"I've only used it once," Roxanne admitted. "What Mykaal can learn in under four hours takes me a lot longer. It's not that I don't have the patience — you don't even notice time passing when you're using the Teacher — but I don't have the time, very often, and he'd have to unlock the crystals so I could use them, anyway, and he just doesn't have the time for that, either—"

The words had come tumbling out of her in a rush so much like one of Megamind's babble fits, she stopped herself with a huge, trembling gasp. The warden squeezed her shoulder in sympathy while his children looked on in apology. "None of us are trying to blame anyone, Mrs. Thejhan," said Elliot, who had been a silent observer up till now. "It's been a hard time for all of us, and we know your husband was only trying to help. It seems funny to think of that, after all those years he tried to convince the world he was evil, and now..." He shook his head, sadly. "It would be plain awful if he was hurt when all he wanted to do was good. Especially if he's hurt like—" He bit off the rest of his sentence, not wanting to say aloud what everyone already knew. Like his mother,with a once lively and active brain damaged beyond repair.

The retired warden took a long, deep breath. "Well, I suppose this is beside the point. What we all need to do is try to come to some kind of a decision about what should happen next, and when. It's not quite a week until Christmas, and I don't think any of us want this hanging over our heads indefinitely, not with out some solid reason to delay. I have to admit, Mykaal really does look like he's just sleeping, but we don't know that if when he wakes up, he'll be able to help Emily, do we?"

"Not for sure," Minion confirmed. "He seemed very confident that he could, but accelerating the process as much as he did may have incomplete results. He didn't have time to test it first, but—" He hesitated, plainly anxious. "I don't think he would've tried if he hadn't had some reason to think it would be safe," he said at last. He didn't feel that he sounded convincing, even to himself, not any more.

The eldest Thurmer gave a heavy sigh. "I'm sure he thought so," he allowed, "but you have to admit, Minion, that boy always rushed in where angels fear to tread. Not that I'm saying he's a fool, but... I don't know. For all his elaborate plans and schemes, he's always been impatient, too impatient for his own good. He doesn't want to wait for things to happen, he wants to make them happen. That can be an admirable trait — or not."

Andrew, who had been studying the monitors a bit more closely, looked up. "I'll give him credit for trying, but..." He clicked his tongue. "I dunno, I saw the new brain scan system at the prison when I was in a few months ago, giving flu shots, and I have a feeling something here is just... wrong."

Before anyone else could respond, Splinter bowged in his cheerfully habitual way. Minion frowned at him as Roxanne loosed a whistly breath. "Yeah, he keeps saying 345," she told the piscine. "Either his internal clock is stuck in place, or he's trying to tell us something else. Is there some kind of error message or system code that uses 345? It might explain something we've been missing."

Elliot, being familiar with computer programming, shook his head. "That's no standard message code that I've ever heard of. Though I doubt there's anything standard about these computers."

Minion confirmed it. "The only times Sir uses any computer language but his own is when he needs it to interface with ordinary systems. Most of the time, he can get around it, anyway. 345 isn't any code I recognize, though heaven only knows what kinds of things he might've added to his operating systems since he started working with the data from our homeworld. He could've incorporated some of that into this system, he designed it after he found the stuff from home — but Splinter wouldn't know that." He looked at the brainbot, frowning with puzzlement. "Would you?"

Splinter's answering bowg was vague, yet strangely cheerful, giving the same response he'd been giving since that morning, which Minion translated for their guests. "Maybe 'system operating normally' is what 345 means in whatever computer language that scanner uses," Marcia speculated after hearing the interpretation. "That at least would make sense."

"It would," her father agreed. "And if it is operating normally—" He paused, brows furrowed. "What does that mean, exactly?"

Minion rubbed his robotic hands together, since he couldn't really hang his head. "I don't know!" he lamented. "It could mean he'll wake up two days from now, a week from now, a month from now, or never! I didn't help Sir design this system or build it, I don't know if I'm misinterpreting what data it's giving us. And if he used things he learned from the Teacher to do it, I can't even compare it to other things he did before and figure it out! This was just the prototype, it doesn't have all the readouts with detailed interpretations like the system he installed at the prison. I just... don't know!"

It was so unlike Minion to show anything even remotely resembling despair, not a one of the others remained unaffected. Roxanne leaned against his arm in an expression of understanding comfort, the four younger Thurmers offered glances of sympathy, the eldest groaned softly in regret. "I'm sorry, son, I didn't mean for you to feel guilty about this. We both know Mykaal, you even better than me. He's always tried to prove himself to the world, and he's pigheaded enough to go right ahead and do what he thinks he has to, and damn the consequences! These days, his heart is in the right place, but he's just as stubborn and determined as ever, I'm sure. I hope he didn't make a mistake that wound up hurting him permanently. Whether they know it or not, I think the world needs him, not so much for his brains as for that stubborn determination, and his optimism. In a world where so many people give up so easily, we need someone like him, someone who doesn't quit even when everyone says he's trying to do something impossible."

"Then maybe we shouldn't quit either, Dad," Elliot said, quietly, thoughtfully. "I know we all want this to be over with before Christmas, but what's really most important? Getting our closure before the holidays, or giving Mom a chance to live?"

Lisa winced. "But to leave her hanging in limbo forever, when we don't even know that the only person who might've had a chance of saving her isn't crippled, too?"

"Lisa!" The hissed admonition came from her sister, the elbow in her ribs from her youngest brother, glares from both her father and Elliot.

Roxanne grimaced. "No, it's the truth," she admitted, hating it, but the reporter in her wouldn't deny it again. "We've been dancing around it, all of us, but it's true. We don't know what's happened to Mykaal, what went wrong, why he won't wake up, why he can't, when or even if he will! It isn't fair to any of you, to ask you to put your lives on hold for a promise he made that he may not be able to keep or—" She gasped to a stop, stopping the flood of words before the emotions driving them pushed her into either screaming or tears that might never end.

Minion and the warden were both about to say something to her when a sharp beeping from the medical scanners interrupted. Andrew, who was standing closest to the monitor screen, turned to them as swiftly as any good nurse would give attention to such sounds of warning. They could all see the flashing of the lights reflecting onto him from the screen.

"This can't be good," he said grimly as the others moved to make way for Minion to join him, fast. "I don't know what this means, but..."

The piscine immediately saw his cause for concern, as did the others when they moved so that they could get their own looks. The representation of Megamind's neural activity — which had been glowing a solid, brilliant white for the past three days — had started to flicker, certain areas dimming then brightening, then fading to a faint glow; other areas sputtered fitfully, steadily growing dimmer and dimmer until they went completely dark. The non-graphic data stream flowing across the bottom of the screen continued to flow as it had all along, in numbers and complex codes that made no sense to anyone but the man lying unconscious on the bed.

And perhaps to one brainbot. Splinter started bowging the same thing over and over: 345, 345, 345, 345, 345...

Frustrated and frightened Roxanne laid both hands on the little bot, frantic, unwilling to watch the screen that was so plainly showing the signs of a brain shifting from overdriven overload to complete and final shutdown. "345, 345!" she snapped, demanding the brainbot's attention. "What is your obsession with 345?"

"I wish I knew!" Minion declared, no less frustrated than she. "Splinter, what are you trying to tell us? What does 345 mean?"

"...warming up..."

The verbal response was so unexpected, everyone stared in shocked amazement at the brainbot, who'd stopped his repetitive bowging when Roxanne had laid hands on him. Brainbots didn't talk, not in voices that ordinary people could understand — and yet, every last one of them had heard the voice, quite clearly. They all looked at Splinter, bewildered, wondering if he would give more of an explanation. And they heard the voice again.

"...warming up, Minion. My brain is warming up..."

Roxanne gasped, blue eyes wide as she stared at the bot, unbelieving. "My brain...?" she repeated. Her head snapped up, first looking at the monitor and all its readouts, her eye by chance catching the small time display in one corner of the screen as it flicked from 3:44 to 3:45.

Then she looked at Megamind, still unmoving on the bed, but now wearing a broad, if weak, grin as a few seconds passed. Then slowly and with heavy lids, but with a clear, bright sparkle, his vivid green — and very much alive and aware — eyes opened. "My brain was warming up," he said again, softly, voice rough from disuse, enjoying the ironic little joke on both himself and his first friend.

Roxanne didn't give a damn about irony or jokes of fate or two old friends ribbing each other. She practically leapt over the monitors and their guests and even Minion, launching herself past them to latch onto her husband and let loose all her unshed tears in such intense relief, she was quite sure she would never again let him go.

To be concluded...