WORTH A BEAT DOWN

Fred said to Serena, "there are other ways. We don't have to say goodbye, just yet. Gilead still has a few cards to play."

Standing at the bottom of the stairs from the airplane, Serena was sincerely ready to move on. Nichole, her baby was in Canada. Being cared for by Offred's exiled husband. Mr. Bankole, Serena thought, he had a potty mouth, hardly the 'Christian man' that Gilead's file on him claimed. But it was what it was.

It was cold standing apart from Fred on the tarmac, at the bottom of those stairs. She'd stood apart from him on purpose. He was such a little man. Fred made a nod towards the SUV which Nick was driving, but somehow the cold seemed appropriate.

That's when the voice first made itself present. First time. It was Sonia, Sonia Cushing. 'Go away, bitch,' Serena thought, 'not now. I'm grieving and you're gloating. First there's Fred, now you.'

"Okay," said the voice, "I'll wait. Just make sure you don't open your bag with Fred around. You don't know what I mean, yet. But when you see your Iridium 9555 - whoa, fancy! - just give me a shout. I'll walk you through it. Ray had one of those. Do not, repeat, do not let Fred see it until it's time. Me, I'd found Ray's. Boy did I get a licking for that."

TAKING STOCK

Serena thought to herself, that Sonia was now not going to leave her alone. Sonia, as always, had an opinion about everything. Especially when not asked for one. Now being privy to Serena's most private…. 'this is torture', Serena thought as she drifted off.

"Ok, honey, are you ready to abandon the aggrieved Wife routine? Start being Serena?" Sonia said, a comment which waited for REM-sleep to kick in. "Fred has beaten you, Fred has cut off your fucking finger. Still, bitch, you're more fortunate than I ever was. You had no idea, and the times I needed someone - just to listen - there was only you and your fucking obsession with that brat in Canada that isn't even yours. You never once listened. Okay, you paid for the abortion, and there was Antigua… I'll give you those."

"You've made an international, televised appeal," Sonia summarized. "That went well. Not! Who was the PR genius who included Offred in the photo ops? All that did was turn the world against you."

"Where's the 'Serena Joy' who used to take charge? Who used to vette the stuff the old Fred did? You did. You needed to because Fred simply does not have your strategic mind. You've got the chops, he's just a male. Neither do any of the snobby D.C. Commanders nor their bitch Wives. This is going nowhere, Serena. I know you know. You know how I know you know? This voice you're hearing, bitch, it's you! You can kid me, but you can't kid you."

Serena thought, 'if Sonia goes on like this, so help me I am going to pinch myself awake.'

Sonia continued undeterred. "Your house, gone. Your Handmaid, she's now Ofjoseph. Nick, he's fucked off to Chicago. All that the D.C. Commanders are interested in is humiliating Eleanor Lawrence. Forcing Joseph to fuck his Handmaid in front of her - you know that Eleanor can easily be tipped, either way. THESE are the people, your own precious Freddo included, who you're relying on to retrieve Nichole? Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha…."

The one thing Serena hated was Sonia's laugh. Serena thought, 'so what would you have me do? I'm a woman. In Gilead.'

"You're Serena fucking Joy! You used to wear big-girl panties. You're the bitch who stared down the 'woke-mob' at the university." Sonia was silent for a minute, Serena knew that that was not a good sign.

Sonia said softly, the first soft thing she'd said, "Take your Iridium-9555 to Fred. Tell him, 'enough is enough'. That things are going to be done your way from now on." Sonia paused for effect, "tell him to call Mark Tuello, and get the two of them to cut a deal."

Serena lay silent in her REM-sleep, knowing that it was rare to stay there long. Knowing that, Sonia said more loudly, "you're Serena Joy, the architect of Gilead. The boys, they're now pushing you aside. Tell Fred, 'enough is enough'. Show him your finger if you have to."

I DREAMED A DREAM OF DAYS GONE BY

"So," Sonia said in the dream, "there's no getting rid of me, is there?"

Serena sighed. She thought to herself that all she had to do was wait Sonia out, that eventually she'd wake and Sonia would be gone for another few hours. Sonia, she had interfered way, way too much.

"Say, bitch," Sonia continued, "answer me one of the mysteries of life."

What that I can, Serena thought, what that I can. 'Sonia is never going to forgive me,' Serena thought, 'but if our positions were reversed, she'd have given me up in a heartbeat.'

Hearing the thought, Sonia snarked back, "I would not have, and you know it. Besides, whose face would I have rubbed it in when hosting the High Commander's Wife's tea! Oh, that's right, Ray never made High Commander. Serenia Joyless intervened."

Serena thought, 'this is all in me, geez, it's my dream. You'd think I could manage things in here better. Out there, in this excuse for a prison, it's all easy - running interference between my dim husband, and the equally dim American, Mark Tuello. Like shooting fish in a barrel.'

"Hey," Sonia barked, "don't interrupt my train of thought."

'Your train?' Serena thought, wondering if laughing in here would translate to her smiling in her sleep. 'How could it be Sonia's train, when I'm the only one in here?'

"What I want to know is," Sonia said, then lowered her voice to match the salaciousness of the pose, "why you never bedded your driver, that guy Nick?"

Serena thought to herself that she must be smiling 'outside of body' by now. It was no wonder Sonia Cushing had been reduced to appearing in dreams - it was long-since that her lifeless body had been cut down from 'The Wall' where she'd hanged between her Martha and Ray, her husband.

"Look at him Serena. Young, virile, not shooting blanks like poor old Freddo-boy." Sonia laughed, then added, "Oh, I forgot. Men in Gilead don't misfire. Only the women do, ha ha ha ha ha ha!"

Serena's smile abated. Surely Sonia had cottoned on that it only could have been Fred. Sonia might not like it, but Fred and Serena were now 'in the family way,' although admittedly in reduced circumstances. Fred was full caliber. Now, the two prospective parents could only visit one another when either Mark Tuello or the ITWC people there in Toronto deemed it necessary. (The only time in Canada they'd been alone was in the prison Chapel! Serena had standards! Then there was the first time, when Serena had gone in to tell Fred that she'd turned on him…. that visit did not count.)

Feeling the need to correct her, Serena said, "Sonia, if you had been paying attention, you'd have known that that night at the Eco-farm had, shall we say, 'gone well'. That family, the econofamily, they were so pure. Making love to a choral version of Dona Nobis, it reminded me and Fred why we'd followed God down this path. Why we'd accepted the sacrifice of leadership. He'd even caressed the stump of my finger…"

"You know, honey," Sonia interrupted, "I don't need details, I really don't. You still haven't answered the question. Nick, he's easy on the eyes." Sonia brought up a subconscious picture of Nick in Serena's mind, that first summer he'd been with them - Nick with a shirt off, shoveling manure into Serena's garden. The sun had glistened from the sweat on his chest.

"Take a peek, Serena," Sonia said. "Instead, you forced him on to your Handmaid - that's what got you in here." Sonia reminded Serena of what had always got her in trouble - choosing her scheming over even her gonads. "And now," Sonia observed, "Nick's concubine was in here threatening both you and your baby. How's the 'grand plan' going now, bitch?"

Hearing no answer, Sonia continued. "Why didn't you just split the difference? After the Handmaid when he'd complied, why didn't you take him for yourself? He's real easy on the eyes, girl. Just look! Looking at what happened to the Handmaid, you'd have a real daughter a lot sooner than this!"

All this was proof that Sonia had never been a Jacob, much less a Christian. Then again she'd admitted as much in Serena's senior year at university. Then again, this was not exactly 'Sonia Cushing' was it? She was long gone.

"Okay," Sonia switched gears, "what about Tuello!?" Sonia complained that she'd scoured Serena's inner psyche, but there were no lurid images of the American there.

Serena answered, "Sonia, you would have lived longer if you'd realized that Tuello is only a means to an end."

To which Sonia countered, "Aren't they all?"

DIURNAL VARIATION OF MOOD

Right now, things were looking good. For Fred, for sure. So why was it that when she eventually woke, Serena was feeling down?

Now not fully awake, she used that last dribble of unconsciousness to plan for the day - first would be to check on Fred's success across the Atlantic at the actual Criminal Court itself. Him icing the deal that he and Serena had hammered out with Tuello. There they were, a team. Again. When she did wake, Serena would need to check her computer for any message from Fred, them being six hours ahead. 'The deal'? It was their knowledge of Gilead bartered for the Waterfords' freedom, both of them. Where they could raise their own biological baby in Toronto.

Complete with protection from Gilead.

Yes, Serena thought before waking, things were looking good. They'd had a bad hand, but had played it brilliantly. She and he, The Mrs. and the Commander, both arguing like undergrads, as well as implementing the best deal between them - when they'd had few cards to play.

'It's like old times,' Serena thought, 'me and Fred with our heads together sketching out the future for the God we love. For the family we soon will have.'

'Fred will be pleased once he gets back, a free man. Then the world will be as we build it. A world-wide Gilead. Without the need to for a government or impotent Commanders to enforce it.'

"So, Serena," Sonia broke in, just before first light, "you're not going to say? You won't tell me why there's all those images of Nick in your mind?" Sonia paused, "have it your way. So you won't mind if I have a go? At Nick, I mean. He seems easy enough, even for you."

Serena had to remind herself that this was still the dream.

INTERRUPTED SLEEP SYNDROME

When one's sleep is continually interrupted, it could trigger a further depression, even beyond the normal morning-blues. Long term, it could play a part in both Parkinson's as well as Alzheimer's showing up earlier than normal.

So it was, Serena did not even have a chance to say goodbye to Sonia.

The noise outside her cell was apparent, especially the way her fortified door swung open.

Four tactically-clad SWAT-like police barged in, took positions with their guns circling Serena, she stood calmly rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. The unit leader said crisply, "Mrs. Waterford, you're to come with us, quickly. You're to be transferred to a more secure facility!"

'More secure?' Serena thought. She added, 'I doubt June Osborne herself could get at me here!'

Exercising her new-found, Toronto chops, she said to the commander, "I'm not going anywhere until I speak to Mr. Tuello." She may not have risked such a challenge if in a Gilead jail, she knew that there, she'd be knocked prone with a rifle butt. Not in Canada, no sir.

"Ma'am, you're still in I.C.C. custody. Move to the door, or I'll have my men move you." Serena frozen in place compelled the commander to add, "remaining here is a danger - both to you and your unborn baby."

Serena still frozen, the woman turned to her men and calmly said, "move her."

They handcuffed her, and moved her out of the cell and down the hall.

Stopping to check an intersecting corridor, Mrs. Waterford asked, "is this about my husband? I have not heard from him." The unit commander answered that she knew nothing about that.

Serena then thought she heard a voice, creepily it was a exact duplicate of Sonia Cushing's voice.

"Mrs. Waterford, my name is Marcia McPhadden. Senior Director of I.C.C.'s Prisoner Liaison Office. I'm afraid I have some bad news. Some terrible news."

"Aught-owe," said a voice from within Serena, this time unmistakenly Sonia's. What ever was going on, it was just like Sonia to show up and revel in disaster.

"This morning," Ms. McPhadden continued, "Canadian Border Service agents…." but Serena missed what she'd said next, due to Sonia's interference. 'Sonia,' Serena thought, 'shut the fuck up!

Something is going on here, and I'd missed it! Sonia then told Serena, 'suit yourself, I was just trying to shield you from the blow. Have at it, bitch.'

Ms. McPhadden said, "we were able to make a positive identification. It's your husband. He's dead. I'm sorry."