This is kind of the end as far as the storyline. On one level, this is exactly what I planned. On another, it came together way better after I added what I did. The rest of this will be pretty much fluff, which is where I have fun.

They all gathered around Bond. Loid held Loidy. Yuri sat with his arm around Yor and Fiona in his lap. Anya stroked his muzzle. "Oh, Bond, don't die!" she pleaded.

"It's all right to be sad," Loid said. "But we made him such a happy puppy…"

"It's a symbolic sacrifice," Damian said.

"Symbolic?" Franky shouted. "I lost 12 good troopers because of these-! Oh, buddy!" He threw his arms around Bond, shaking with sobs. "C'mon, pull through! I'll make you a body that's better than new! Nothing will hurt you again the way I'm gonna build you!"

Bond lifted his head to meet Franky's eyes. "Borff," he said. Willow leaned in, gazing steadily into his eyes. Fiona descended to a crouch, facing her child.

"Oh, my baby girl," Fiona said. Willow's eyes turned upward. "When I saw you, before you were born… you looked just like you do now." She shifted to her daughter's side, and rested her hand between Bond's ears. "I saw what you see, all those years ago. Thank you." Bond's eyes shut. A moment later, Franky flipped a switch.

"Uh, guys?" said the Flea. "There's still a reactor on overload."

"How much time do we have?" Anya asked.

"Thirty minutes," Yuri said. "Maybe 45. But the crew is already evacuated."

"Um, can we do anything from here?" Anya wondered. Suddenly, there was a roar of engines. A hover saucer rose into view. An exotrooper leaped onto the north balcony. A smaller armored form followed.

"All right," the exotrooper shouted. "I'm the Tick! My partner is the Flea. I fought through a hundred robots to get this thing! Now where is he?"

"Right here!" the Flea said with a wave.

"What, you were sitting around the whole time?" the Tick said. "You idiot!" They embraced each other and cried.

The second figure stepped forward. "Becky to the rescue!" she said. "Hey, Anya, I did get to use my armor! And my dear Mr. Forger!- Oh no, Bond! But why's everybody looking nervous?"

"Fiona set a nuclear reactor to overload," Loid said grimly. "We can escape, but there are hundreds of people who haven't been able to evacuate."

"Oh, that's all?" Becky said. "I can fix that."

"All right," Anya said. "Do you need to pull a switch you can only get to by climbing down through flames and bolts of electricity and stuff?"

"Nope," Becky said. "Completely automated."

"Well, do you need to get to the master control room to shut it down?" Anya said.

"Uh uh, it's already pretty well decentralized," Becky said. She set a briefcase computer on the table. "Here, give me that cable."

Becky hummed as she powered on the computer and began to type. "Are you trying to guess the right password?" Anya asked.

"No, it's Starlight," Becky said. "After my best friend. Here we go… This might be a bit tricky… Actually, that went through first try. There. We're done. The reactor's shut down. The arcscraper will keep going on backup generators and batteries until it's back online."

"What?" Fiona said. "I set a nuclear reactor to blow up on purpose, and that's all it took?"

"Well, if you're building a nuclear reactor, you want shutting it down to be easy," Becky said. She smiled at Damian. "So, did you get any time with Anya while she was rescuing you?"

"Uh, kind of," Damian said. He tugged his collar nervously. "She really only came in right at the end."

Becky batted her eyelashes. "You know she can already read your mind," she said. "Why don't you ask her out already? Or you could just skip all that and propose…"

"No way!" Anya said. She gestured dramatically toward the horizon. "I'm staying single till I'm at least- twenty-two!"

Becky had already turned to Prince Ferdinand. "Now that Uncle Rudy's out, I'm thinking it's time for me to take a more active role in Blackbell Industries," she said. She began to spread out a series of pamphlets. "He was really holding things down until I was ready anyway. What I'm thinking is, diversification for the peacetime economy. That will mean new divisions. Blackbell Motors. Blackbell Home Appliances. Blackbell Toys. Blackbell Computers…"

Loid smiled. "We have time to talk, then," he said. "Let's go. I think Fiona could use a little time, too."

They gazed out from the north balcony, side by side. They could hear voices coming from the next balcony over, and laughter. "My father was a good man," Loid said. "I am sure of that. He would have acted like a better one, if he and mother could have parted. But there were things that weren't accepted, if they were allowed at all. The only way he would have left is if he knew someone could take care of her."

"Did you ever look for him?" Anya asked.

"I found out he survived the war," Loid said. "I could have contacted him. There was nothing to say. I… I think that made me afraid of being a father or a husband."

"You got there when you were ready," Anya said. "Same as Fiona and Yuri."

"I know your mother and I must confuse you," Loid said. "I love her, I know she loves me, and I would do whatever I needed for her to feel loved. She simply accepts that I am not like other men. Our only concern has been that you do not think making love is not a good thing."

"Papa, I read minds," Anya said. "Everybody loves differently. I love you, and Mama and Baby Brother, and… well, I like Damian. We're just not in a hurry. He says we won't know what our options are until college, anyway. Really, just being around people in love goes a long way."

She looked up, knowing that Papa already gazed at her. For a moment, she was disoriented by a double image of her face over his. Tears ran down his cheeks. "There is something I told Mama, but not you," he said. "She was not the first person I married for a mission. I know this, but it has been hard to remember. It is our version of retirement. The first time, before I trained Nightfall, Sylvia sent me to a war widow who organized peace demonstrations. She was known to be… passionate. At the time, that was still a perk to me. It changed with her, I am still not sure why. It lasted 9 months."

He held up the toy gun. "She had a son. He… he got this from one of his relatives. I still do not know what happened, but I had to leave, after. Handler made sure they were looked after."

"Oh, Papa," Anya said. She wiped a tear from his cheek. "You didn't hurt anyone. You wouldn't."

"I know," Papa said. He leaned on the railing.

"You haven't given Loidy a toy gun," Anya said. "But you let me have my ray gun and you bought me the Bondman pistol. Did it bother you?"

"I didn't like it," he answered. "It was different, though. Bondman isn't a soldier, he's a spy, a silly make-believe spy. You understood that." He moved his arm through the motion of a throw. "This feels like how it should end."

"Um, it's better if you don't," Anya said. "I saw what happens when things land."

"You're right," Loid said. He squeezed the grip of the gun with the strength of his exoskeleton. The toy chattered, until the plastic broke into pieces and the spring of its mechanism popped out like a jumping flea. He gripped the metal body with both hands, crumpling the tin plate like aluminum foil. He dropped what remained on the deck. "Yes, that was much better." They laughed as he raced back inside, Anya on his back.