Author's Note: Yeah, I know, a shortie. But it seems appropriate in light of Christmas. Everyone, have safe travels and happy celebrations. Remember, Jesus is the reason for the season!

Church:

I like Meera, in a sadistic and admittedly, delightfully twisted sort of way. In my presence, she bows up like a kitten confronted by a large dog: so utterly harmless it's adorable.

The drugs I gave her are starting to peak. I can tell by the way her eyes glaze over every half minute or so, and her mouth hangs slack after a particularly slow, shallow drag of my knife. The psychological effects of the cocktail are amplifying every mote of pain, every bolt of electricity, every nuance of my tones.

I'm in her, around her, echoing through her mind and body. She can't escape me, or the pain I inflict.

Over the course of the last three hours, I've asked myriad questions, some innane and some a burning curiousity. By baiting her to answer seemingly harmless questions, her walls will start to come down. It's a natural pregression, really, to draw first sounds, then words, then meaningful mixes of both. When she repeatedly refuses to answer, I make her twist and scream with pain on the ends of her cuffs.

Yes, I like her screams best. At first she refused me those sounds of release, but I soon wrung them out of her. A tazer does that quickly.

It sates my savage beast to have her, a substitute for and direct tie to Barney, so totally under my control. I stroke my knife point down her neck again, to watch her tense and her expression change in pain. The blade leaves a pink streak, not quite breaking the tender skin.

"How did you and Barney meet?" I ask Meera softly, so she has to listen. A serious question, after a few softening ones, as has been my pattern.

Her eyes open, sharpen against the drugs, and flash brandy fire. "Go to hell!" she snarls. Being around Americans has obviously improved her vernacular.

She accepts my retaliation without chagrin, like the advances of a lover, understanding the consequences before she had even voiced the words. It makes me smile, even as she grinds her teeth against the tazer's stabs. She knows pain: bone-deep, heartbreaking pain. She knows it well enough to weigh the value of her answers against it, and find the answers worth keeping behind that locked jaw.

I watch the blood drip down her elbow, fascinated by the viscousity and brightness of it, waiting several long seconds before removing the prongs of the tazer from her stomach. The tazer's tip smells like burned blood and ozone, and matches the deep red-to-black scorch marks on her skin, under the burned points on her shirt.

She sags, and I give her a moment to recover. Who said I wasn't polite? "We've still got five hours," I comment pleasantly, looking at my watch.

She wheezes with each breath, not bothering to take her weight off the cuffs. That simply won't do.

I cradle the back of her head, angling myself up under her downturned face. "Where did you and Barney meet?"

"None of your business," she says, breath fanning my face. The intimacy of the moment is stunning, a traditional, regressive romance between an aggressor and a receiver.

I step back slightly, put my blade at her prominent little hipbone, and slice. She shrieks as fresh blood pours, soaking her jeans down to one knee in moments.

She's probably starting to feel the loss of blood and the full sway of the drugs by now: a weakness and a buzz, all in one. It might even be crossing her mind that she could die, in five hours, from bloodloss, if not outright from my ministrations.

"You will answer me truthfully, Meera," I state. It's only a matter of time. As Leo Tolstoy once said, the two most powerful warriors are patience and time. I have abundance of one, but limits to the other. The change of tone in her answers is heartening.

We'll get there. We're well on the way.

Booker:

Trench and I leave his Beemer in Barney's hangar, taking my SUV and hitting the interstate once again.

I'm focused on the task at hand and the one ahead. The cabin on the map is the most secluded one in the park, perfect for holing up with a prisoner.

Trench reaches over and stabs the radio on. Classical notes fill the car. "Are you kidding me?" he asks. "Where's the jazz station?"

I stab the radio back off, glaring at him. Barney learned his Look from the best, after all.

"Since Church doesn't know we're coming," says Trench, with a clearing of his throat. "I assume the obvious plan is the one we're going with?"

"The obvious," I affirm. "With a twist."

"A sharp eye for boobytraps?"

"You got it."

Trench grunts. "Should be easy, provided the element of surprise stays with us. We'll be home by dinner."

"Lean Cusine again tonight?" I quip dryly.

"You know me so well," he deadpans. "Lean Cusine and Jack Daniels No. 7. Dinner of champions. And more fried cat and rice for you?"

"Hu-nee and I've grown to appreciate venison, lately," I remark thoughtfully, recalling the buck I'd been stalking earlier. It figures I would trade one hunt for another. I only hope that the sum of my skills, experience, and luck outweighs Church's, who is significantly more wiley than a deer.

"Good stuff," appoves Trench, suddenly remembering his arrogant facade. He paws through his personal dufflebag, withdrawing a Kel-Tech Sub 2000, snapping out the stock and sighting it.

I want to roll my eyes. Never did like Trench's penchant for showiness. But he is a level head and a good shot, and Barney was smart to send two for this rescue mission.

"We'll park someplace secluded," I say, taking the exit ramp. "And hike in. Avoid the roads and rangers."

"Agreed," replies Trench, mechanically screwing on a silencer. "No sense making ourselves seen. Is a tactical strobe light too much bling?"

I eye the setting sun, painting the horizon in gradiating hues. "I'd say it's too much, normally, but in a situation like this, go for it."

Trench snaps the device under his barrel, and tests it against his shoes. "Hell yeah."

I smile faintly, because the sentiment is mutual. Hell is about to come down on Church.

Barney:

I have four hours. Four fucking hours until I lose the love of my life, the only person in all my years to steal my heart.

I feel old. Down to my very bones, ancient. I sit down for a while, facing the sun with my back to a granite boulder.

You walk towards me across a clearing of shimmering snow, naked and lovely. Your skin has lost some of its glow, and your smile does not reach your eyes. "Barney," you whisper. It sounds like a plea, a summoning, an incantation.

"I'm here," I murmur.

Your head ducks towards your bare chest, and when you lift it again, your nose is bleeding and your eye is black. "Barney," you say again, louder, more insistent, as though you weren't sure I heard you.

"I'm here," I repeat, with an equal change in volume.

There's a pat, pat, pat sound. I look down. Bright red blood falls to the snow, from between your legs. You moan in pain, clutching your own shoulders, as though your body could hug itself and that makes it better, because I'm not there to embrace you.

"BARNEY!" you yell, at the top of your lungs.

I bolt upright against the rock in Russia. My heart is pounding, faster than it did when we kissed. I fell asleep, when a hemisphere away, you're being tortured. That pat, pat, pat sound is real.

I dig my fingers into my scalp until is hurts. I want to scream with frustration. If I were there, I'd save you, I'd hold you, and stop your bleeding.

I'd stop your bleeding.

I hear a very faint whirring sound above me. Snapping my head up, I blink away the blurriness of sleep and sorrow. The UAV is emerging from the clouds, dipping in and out of the scuds about a mile away in the white-brushed-blue sky. Its trajectory is away from the camp, over the vista we are camped in sweeping view of.

"Where's that laser?!" I bark, scrambling to my feet and running back to the camp.

The guys are all hustling, too. "Do we shoot?" asks Christmas tersely.

"Negative! Kresh can't know we see it, or he'll guess something's up with Nadia," I reply.

"And then go check on Yang and Sullivan," finishes Nadia grimly. She holds out the laser pointer to Gunnar. "You are sniper, yes? You have best chance at blinding the UAV."

"She's right," I agree.

Gunnar takes the laser from her with an affirmative nod. "Lend me a shoulder, Ceasar," he says, and the black man sidles in front of him. Gunnar balances his outstretched arm on his friend's shoulder.

"Windspeed, four, south-south-east," says Toll from Ceasar's other side, his eye to a monocular. "Distance, three-thousand yards."

Gunnar inhales, exhales. "Firing." The red laser beams forth, but seemingly makes no contact with the UAV. Gunnar grunts negatively, and motions to Toll. "Gimme that scope. I can't see where I'm aiming."

"You were on the tail fin, over the letters," Toll supplies.

"The lens of the camera is on the front undercarriage of the drone," says Nadia, sharply eyeing the flying symbol of her father's imposing will.

"It'll come back around for another run, I know," I say, folding my arms and widening my stance in the snow.

We all watch with craned heads as the drone get smaller, further away, and eventually disappears into a cloud bank.

"Or maybe not," comments Ceasar. "Damn."

I sigh, rubbing my eyes. This day is hell.

"How much time left?" Christmas asks.

"Yes," whispers Nadia, as though agreeing with the asking of the question.

"Three hours," I reply mechanically. I continue to watch where the UAV vanished, because I don't want to fall asleep. If I hear the sound of your dripping blood anymore, I'll throw myself off a cliff.

Although, at the end of three hours, I might have to do that anyway.