Thomas emerged from the tunnel to a typical Barracks Two evening scene. LeBeau tended a kettle warming on the stove, and Carter and Kinch were quietly playing cards at one end of the table while most of the other men lounged in their bunks. Hogan, he supposed, would be in his office working on something. From what he had gleaned from watching behind Peter's eyes, the Colonel liked to keep himself busy while his men were out on assignment. Waiting in safety while he puts me… us in danger.

That's bollocks and you know it.

Thomas twitched involuntarily, for that had not been his thought. He had not meant to allow Peter to speak to him. He would have to remember to hold him back more tightly.

"Newkirk!" exclaimed Carter, "You're back early, how was it? Did everything go okay?"

"Oui Pierre," LeBeau said as he turned to greet him, "You are back sooner than usual when given the opportunity of a night in the Hofbrau, were you thrown out again?"

"I take offence to that," Thomas replied, putting on his best Peter scowl, "As to your question Andrew, everything went peachy. Was a quiet night, that's all. Where's the guv'nor?"

Don't you dare call him the guv'nor, you have no right-

Thomas imagined a small hole for Peter in the back of his head, and squeezed his fists as he imagined pushing him down to the very bottom. He had no time for his theatrics, he needed to focus on the role he had to play.

Hogan's door opened as if Thomas had called his name.

"Newkirk?" the Colonel asked as he poked his head out his door, "Back so soon?"

"I am back in a bloody normal amount of time, thank you very much… sir," Thomas added belatedly as he had heard Peter do so many times before, "Here sir, message for you."

He reached into his pocket and handed Hogan the note that he himself had written for the underground agent several nights before.

Hogan scanned it quickly. Thomas knew it would be unrecognisable as Peter's writing, he had been careful to change some of the lettering patterns. The Colonel's eyebrows drew down slightly in confusion, and for a moment Thomas held his breath - had he made a mistake?

He'll catch you, you'll see.

ENOUGH! Thomas screamed inwardly, pushing even harder onto that black hole in the back of his mind until he was very, very sure that Peter was at the bottom.

"Interesting," Hogan muttered, "It seems our dearly beloved Kommandant may be diversifying his interests. He's entertaining some black market merchants tonight."

Thomas let the breath out slowly. He should not have doubted himself - Hogan had no reason to believe this was a forgery when it came from one of his most trusted crewmembers.

"Black market sir?" questioned Kinch, "What does that have to do with us?"

"No idea," Hogan answered, "We're supposed to make contact with an agent disguised as one of the merchants, and receive further instructions from them."

As he spoke, through the thin walls they heard the unmistakable rumble of a car approaching. LeBeau went to the door and cracked it open.

"Civilian car," he confirmed, "Must be our black market friends."

"Well," Hogan said as he stepped back into his office to grab his jacket, "Guess I'd better go get myself invited to dinner."

As he left, Thomas smirked. So far, so good.

"What're you smiling at Pierre?" LeBeau asked quizzically, "You look like the cat that stole the cream."

I'll wipe that smile right off your face if I ever get the chance you right basta-

"Nothing Louis," Thomas answered distractedly, his smirk tightening as he pushed Peter down yet again, "Hogan always gets the good parts doesn't he, dinners and such while we run the gauntlet sneaking about the woods at night."

LeBeau looked startled, but Thomas could not focus on the effect his words had had. Peter was becoming a problem he needed to take care of, before he ruined everything,

"I have to go - mend some uniforms," Thomas muttered, and took off down the tunnel before any of the others could stop him.

When he reached the bottom of the ladder, he spun seethingly towards the same mirror from earlier, slamming his hands on the table in front of it.

"Enough!" he spat at his reflection, "I am in control! I will do this, and I will protect us, again!"

"You don't protect me from anything," Newkirk's face was twisted with pain and rage, "You think you protected me when you… when you pushed him off that railing?"

"I know I did," Thomas answered through clenched teeth, "You would have let him beat the life out of us!"

"You made me a murderer. You lost me my entire family, my home, Mavis, Mum…I had no one, ever again, until I came here. And now you'll destroy that too!"

"You had ME!" Thomas' voice began to rise, "I am all you need, and you do need me Peter. You are weak, and spineless, and all you do is get us hurt. No more, I will not allow it."

"I can protect myself, and the last person I need you to protect me from is Colonel Hogan."

Thomas laughed, a manic hysteria beginning to creep into his voice.

"Don't make me laugh Peter. If there's anyone you need protecting from, it's these officers that won't think twice about sending some Cockney scum out to do their dirty work for them. Or do you think that was you who dealt with Flight Lieutenant Armstrong back in basic training? Did you think you had the cunning or the skill to pass that off as a training mishap? He would have hurt us too, I could see it every time he looked at you. I took care of him."

There was silence for a moment.

"I knew," whispered Peter, "There were whispers, afterwards, that someone giving the name Thomas had been in the ammunition area. That was the first time I heard your name, and really knew who you were."

"Then you know that I did what I needed to. He looked at you and he saw you as disposable. So I disposed of him first."

"What you did, what… what you made me do…that was evil. I won't let you do it again."

Thomas stared into the mirror, meeting Peter eye to eye.

"You can't stop me. You can't control me. You've never been able to get rid of me, no matter how hard you try. We are going to sit down here and wait, and when we go back upstairs, Hogan will be dead, and that will be the end of it."

Thomas stared into his own green eyes, and Peter glared back. He could feel the hate emanating from his reflection, and he sneered. He opened his mouth to taunt Peter again.

But nothing came out. He looked back at the mirror, and saw the eyes of his reflection narrow and focus.

"No," said Peter, "Not this time. You will not control me anymore. You won't hurt anyone, anymore, ever!"

Thomas tried to laugh him off, but still nothing came out. He needed to get away from the mirror, he was stupid for indulging Peter, stupid for acknowledging him… but his feet no longer listened to him. His hands were still on the table, and he tried to push himself away, but he found his arms rising instead to grasp the sides of the mirror. He gripped it and pulled, yanking it from its hangings, and stretching his arms up to hold it above his head.

He looked up at the mirror, or at least he thought he did. What had just a moment before been the rough dirt ceiling had suddenly become the floor by his feet, and he realised with horror that he was looking down at himself from within the mirror now.

"Goodbye Thomas," strained Newkirk as he brought the mirror crashing down onto his own head.

88888888

Hogan settled himself on the armchair in Klink's quarters, watching carefully as the rest of the party did so as well. It had been a curious dinner. Klink had been his usual self, self-flattering and ingratiating. But these newcomers had been odd to say the least. The man, Alfred, Hogan could at least understand. He had been silent since he introduced himself, preferring to let his companion do the talking while he watched. He was obviously meant to be her protection.

But the woman, Annaliese, was unlike any Underground agent Hogan had come across before.

Usually the agents he had worked with in the past came in two types. Some were like Tiger - quiet, unassuming, able to blend into the background of any situation, able to mask their true intentions and intelligence behind the assumptions that other men put on them. And then there were those who fell more into the Marya category. Boisterous and loud, but charming and demanding at the same time, so those caught unawares were doing as she wanted before they even knew what they were doing.

This woman, on the other hand, was neither. She was not quiet - in fact she had been the one keeping up most of the conversation over dinner. But neither was she particularly charming. From the moment she had opened her mouth, Hogan had been waiting for when she would be pulling out the snake oil. That might work on some, Hogan thought as he glanced at Klink, but I can't see that getting her very far with the Gestapo.

More importantly, neither she nor Alfred had so far made any attempt at contacting him. No notes passed surreptitiously through a handshake, no attempts at diversion to get him alone, nothing. He could only assume now that whatever they had planned to pass on these instructions, it would occur here in the parlour as they opened one of Klink's bottles of wine. If they could open it that is, for Klink appeared to be having some difficulty with the corkscrew. Hogan suppressed the urge to roll his eyes as Klink struggled.

"Please Herr Kommandant, allow Alfred," Annaliese was saying as she settled herself on the couch, "He was a waiter you know, once, before the war."

As Alfred took the bottle away from a grateful Klink, Hogan found his attention attuned to the silent man. Perhaps he had been a waiter once, but why had this not come up at dinner? Why now? An offhand comment this would seem to Klink, but this could be the moment he had been waiting for, an opportunity as Alfred passed him a wine glass to slip him something at last.

His suspicions seemed confirmed as Alfred grunted slightly as he pulled on the tight corkscrew, and turned away from the rest of them as if not to show how much effort it was taking him to open the bottle. The slight popping noise told them he had finally succeeded, and, still with his back to them, he began to fill the glasses.

"I must thank you again for visiting us Fraulein," Klink said, "It is not often we have a business woman in our midst here at Stalag 13."

"You are most welcome," Annaliese said with a smile that did not reach her eyes, "I hope we can do business together sometime in the future."

Alfred began to pass out the glasses, first to Annaliese and Klink, and then turning his back to them in such a way so that they could no longer see his actions as he passed one to Hogan. Here we go, thought Hogan as he reached for his glass, ensuring to place his whole hand around it and grip it tightly so as not to lose any message.

But he found himself disappointed again as Alfred turned away and he checked his hand. Once again, there was no message. What is going on here? This dinner party would wrap up soon enough, and they were running out of opportunities.

"A toast then I think," Annaliese said, raising her glass, "To a lovely dinner with new friends, and hopefully new business partners."

Hogan noticed her eyes were practically boring a hole in him as he raised his own glass to hers in a toast, and then began to raise it to his lips to drink.

"NO!"

Hogan's head whipped around at the sudden shout that came from the main entrance to the parlour. To his astonishment and confusion, Newkirk was standing in the doorway. And his face was covered in blood.

"Newkirk, what is go-"

"Yes indeed, Corporal Newkirk, what is the meaning of this?" Klink spoke over him, "And how did you get here, you are supposed to be in your barracks, where is Schultz? And what is that on your face, is that… is that blood?"

Newkirk ignored them both, striding across the room to face Alfred and Annaliese. As he passed, Hogan saw that his face and head were dotted with small lacerations which were freshly bleeding. The shoulders of his uniform were dark with blood droplets, but also had tiny bits of shiny material… were those pieces of a mirror?

"Hand it over," Newkirk said quietly, staring down at Annaliese on the couch as though everything was normal.

Annaliese looked back at him, and to Hogan's surprise her expression showed simple confusion, but no sign of the full on shock he had expected.

"Thomas, what are you doing?" she asked, glancing over at Hogan and Klink and dropping her voice, "It was nearly done."

"Thomas is gone," Newkirk said through gritted teeth, "For good now. Hand it over."

Hogan watched this exchange with no understanding - this woman knew Newkirk? How? And why did she know him as Thomas?

She did not move for a moment, glancing slightly at Alfred. Then she held out her hand to him, and Alfred reached inside his jacket pocket, producing a small empty vial that he placed in her hand. She held it up to Newkirk, who took it and then cast a meaningful glance at the wine bottle.

Hogan glanced down at the wine swirling in the glass in his hand, and gulped slightly, putting it aside. He did not fully understand the situation, but he knew that he and Klink had just had a very near miss.

"Herr Kommandant," came a new, breathless voice from the doorway, "Herr Kommandant, I beg to report, the Englander is out of the barracks."

"I can see that Schultz," said Klink shakingly, staring at the vial in Newkirk's hand. It seemed he also had been able to put two and two together for once.

"I think you might want to take another look at these two's papers Kommandant," said Newkirk as he walked over to Klink and held out the vial towards him, "If I don't miss my guess, they are a very excellent forgery. And I'd pour out that wine, if I were you."