I hope you had a happy fourth. Here is the next chapter. I am currently writing the last third of the story, even though I am posting somewhere in the Middle right now. I am so glad you guys are liking it. I have been bludgeoned by a muse and I have started no less than three story outlines in the past two days, so I kind of haven't really been writing the last two days because it is as if a sprinter gets a hurdle put in front of them at five paces. So basically I fell on my face tripping over the outlines... geez it's a disaster in my brain. Luckily this story can plod on because I don't have to do too much thinking. since I am retelling the story. anywho, enjoy! ~S.K.

Eighteen

The freezing rain now matched her mood completely. Jade stared into it, hardly even feeling the sting against her face as the last warm spot inside her dissolved, replaced by a damp bleakness that already regretted her words to Tori.

Damn it.

She tucked her hands under her arms, ignoring the pain the cold was inserting in her joints, and took a quick glance over her shoulder. Tori had disappeared. The knowledge sank into Jade's guts, and she felt a long moment of just wishing she could scrap the entire night, and go after her.

And say what? Sorry for being an asshole.. it's just something you have to get used to? Wasn't it good old Shari who had told her she'd never have a successful relationship, because she always put everything else ahead of it?

Yeah. Funny she should turn up right at the moment. She let the freezing rain drive against her, numbing her face until heavy footsteps ran up and she turned, to see the Bellsouth supervisor pulling his yellow rain suit tight against him.

"All right.. we've got the pairs pulled out." He told her, scrubbing his face. "Now what? I can't keep those guys up on those poles, Ms. West... you need to give us some direction here.. we're pulling all the stops out, but I'm not putting my guys in danger, and it's icing up."

More than you know. Jade rubbed her arms, then exhaled. "Okay.. let's see where everyone else is." She led him back to the tarp, ignoring the angry looks she was getting by the rest of the team, channeling her focus only on the goal. "What's the status?'

"Plane just landed with the routers." One man grudgingly admitted, blowing on his hands. "I got a truck… we were about to leave to go pick them up."

"Good." Jade nodded. "Take off."

"Staff's headed back in.. those I could reach." The older woman told her. "But I had to get pretty tough.. no one's happy.. and a few flat out refused."

"Fine." The dark-haired woman told her. "Okay, now we just need a.."

"The warehouse next door is empty." Tori's voice quietly interrupted her. "They have a telco punch down, and the landlord's on his way with a key."

The flapping of the tarp was suddenly loud, as everyone turned to look at her, and Jade felt an irrational jolt deep in her guts. She studied the set, serious face for a moment. "Thank you, Tori… good work."

Tori nodded and glanced down at the churned, half-frozen mud they were standing in.

"All right.. let's move everything over there... we'll get inside as soon as they open it up.. it'll be warmer and drier at least." Jade stated quietly. "John… that's where we'll need the lines dropped... I think I spotted a block on the back end of that building."

"Right, you are." The Bellsouth manager nodded briskly, pulling out a walkie-talkie and speaking into it. "That's an easy swing… they might even be wired for it already.. that used to be a telemarketing operation."

Tori listened to the conversation, letting it roll over her, until she was aware of footsteps leaving, and then silence. With a sigh, she lifted her head, almost jumping when pale blue eyes met hers. "Oh." She'd thought Jade had gone with them.

They studied each other for a long, pensive moment.

"Sorry about that I.." Tori started.

"Sorry, I snapped at you...I " Jade rumbled at the same time.

Silence fell again, then Jade released a breath and wiped a weary hand across her face. "You didn't deserve that."

Tori stepped closer. "No... I shouldn't have questioned you, Jade." She put out a hesitant hand, and touched Jade's arm, as though reassuring herself. "You needed my support right then, and I blew it."

Jade dropped her eyes to the ground. "I don't want you to think that." She said, after a moment's thought. "Sometimes you need to question me, Tori... I don't know all the answers, and sometimes I push too hard… and the result doesn't end up justifying the means." Her eye swept up, in startling honesty. "You should know that." She sighed and looked around. "I don't know if this is the right thing to do… but I don't know what else to try.. and I have to try something."

Tori nodded and moved another step closer. "I know… I went over to the truck there and sat down.. and I thought about it.." She paused. "That's why I called about that warehouse... I knew that's where you had to go next."

Jade lifted a hand and gently laid it alongside her cheek. "Thank you." She murmured, sincerely. "That really was well done…how'd you know about the punch down?"

Tori smiled, feeling her cold stiffened facial muscles protest. "Modern technology... I linked up to the local real estate page and did a search on available commercial property in this area.. listed my specifications, and it popped right up." Her eyes twinkled gravely at the widening of Jade's eyes. "Even had the landlord's number there." She added. "He wasn't happy about me calling him at two am, but since I offered twenty percent more than what he was asking, he made an exception, and said he'd get right over here. He lives about ten minutes away."

Jade gave a little shake of the head, then she impulsively pulled Tori into a hug, reveling in the warmth as the smaller woman wound her arms around her and squeezed really hard. "You're the best."

Tori smiled in pure relief, ignoring the dampness of Jade's jacket. Then she released her boss and patted her gently on the side. "And.. hey, Jade?"

"Mm?" The now warm blue eyes regarded her.

Tori lifted her chin. "If and when you want to talk about the old history... I'm here."

Jade's eyelids fluttered as she ducked her head for a moment, then raised it. "Thanks." She replied quietly. "Maybe we'll have time this weekend." For a lot of things, she mused.

"Okay." Tori exhaled. "Well, I think that's our landlord over there… I guess we'd better get started…but Jade, I have to ask you... we're replacing the routers, but what about the mainframes? We can't duplicate those.. not even if you commandeer half the Air Force."

Jade slipped an arm over her shoulders and started to walk towards the now-lit building behind the operations center. "No… but the mainframes are in a separate room.. they connect over a fiber optic LAN bridge." She pointed. "And the access block is on the roof."

Tori stared at the roof, then her eyes shifted to a new truck that had just pulled up, bearing the fiber optics division insignia of the telephone company. "Oh.. you're just too good." She turned an admiring gaze on her boss. "That's slick, Jade.. but do we know they have power and are turned on in there? I thought those environmental people turned everything off."

Jade let out a breath. "We'll find out… but we've got a lot to do before then.. and it's going to be a race."

Tori lifted her head and regarded the growing crowd they were heading towards. "I have a feeling I'm going to be present at yet another Jade West legend in the making."

"Hmm.. let's just hope it's not my swan song," Jade muttered.

Tori stood back and watched the group disperse inside the large, ill-lit warehouse, scattering out from the door and trying to avoid the tumbleweed-sized dust bunnies that were rolling languidly across the stained carpet. It smelled like a cross between a dirty shed and a mildewed garage, and Tori wrinkled her nose in pure reaction.

But at least it was warm, sort of, and not raining inside. Jade was standing in the center of the room, her hands on her hips and her eyes regarding the space they had to work with, and Tori noticed the rain dripping off her jacket with a frown.

"All right." The tall, dark-haired woman finally said. "Truck here yet?" She turned to the facility manager. "I thought I heard the engine outside."

He nodded. "Just got here… I'll have them stack the boxes over there, and start unpacking things."

"Right… there should be racks with them and a spool of Cat 5." Jade told him. "Better start having people make the jumper cables. I'll work with telco to get the lines dropped in."

"Okay." He rubbed his eyes. "Damn… wish we had an urn of coffee in here." He moved off towards a clump of grumpy-looking technicians.

Coffee. Jade wished he hadn't said that. She could feel the day's exhaustion catching up with her, and she had to make a conscious effort to jump-start her brain, turning it to the stuff still undone. The cold had stiffened up her muscles as well, and her half-healed knee had been aching for hours since she'd been standing and walking on it. With a sigh, she turned, almost slamming right into Tori. "Wh.. oh.. sorry."

The brunette woman pushed a bundle of cloth into her hands. "Here… go change you're making my teeth chatter."

Jade put her hands up in reflex and found them filled with warm, dry clothes. "Whe…um… thanks." She gave Tori a grateful smile. "Where's yours?"

Tori showed her the bag slung over her shoulder. "I'm going to make a quick run out with Mary…" She indicated the day manager who had called in the staff. "When I get back, I'll change…they're offloading the routers now."

Jade nodded. "I know…okay, I'm going to start getting the T1's punched down."

"After you change." Tori persisted. "Right?"

A soft chuckle. "Right." Jade followed the hastily lettered signs which indicated the restrooms, and ducked inside the one marked Women, wincing at the smell of rotted grout. "Oh god." She debated holding her breath, then decided passing out would be a bad idea and simply turned her mind to more pleasant thoughts as she quickly stripped out of her soaked clothing. It was almost a sensual experience pulling on the clean, dry denim over her chilled legs, and she quickly tucked the flannel shirt Tori had retrieved into them, buttoning the jeans closed and tugging on her sweatshirt as well. "Damn, that feels good." She commented to the empty room, gathering up her dripping shirt and pants, and draping them over a stall divider, tucking her drenched underthings into the pants pockets.

Then she sat on the edge of a water basin, tugging on a pair of thick, warm socks and her dry sneakers, letting her hands fall as she finished and reveling in the simple pleasure of being warm and dry after so many hours of damp misery. She wondered briefly how long it would have taken her to do this on her own, feeling a little guilty about having Tori have to nudge her into it. With a sigh, she stood, wishing she'd thought to bring some analgesic for her knee, and gazed at her damp reflection, flicking her fingers through her hair to order it somewhat. "Drowned rat." She told the reflection, which looked wryly back at her. "No wonder everyone thinks you're nuts."

She trudged back out into the open warehouse, only then wondering where Tori had scooted off to.

"Okay.. " Tori peered out of the windshield. "We need to find a place to get sandwiches or something for everyone… they must be hungry." Of course, she had a personal motive for asking, but it seemed much nobler to think of the group first. "Any 24-hour groceries around here?"

Mary looked at her. "You're joking, right?"

"Come on.. we even had one in Darien." Tori eyed her. "Okay.. a Seven-Eleven.. a Wal Mart.. anything?"

"How about Lolita's Market and Deli?" Mary asked, with a perfectly serious face. "They've got some good sandwiches."

Tori held her breath to keep from giggling nervously. "Oh.. okay.. sure.. "

"And there's a Stop and Shop.. if you want." The woman added.

"Both." Tori nodded firmly. "Um… the Deli first… no the convenience store, gonna want to get the food back as soon as possible." Tori sighed.

The other woman put the car in gear and headed out, driving the dark back roads for twenty minutes before pulling into a lonely-looking, but fairly well-lit convenience store. They got out and entered, and Tori wasn't surprised to find they were the only patrons. She went to the obviously brand new ATM, standing in a place of pride near the Slurpee machine, and selected her corporate card, swiping it and keying in her ID number. She considered a moment, then entered an amount, idly imagining an electronic gasp from the machine as it thought about her request. Finally, it grudgingly gave up the cash, and she tucked her card away, turning around and prowling the aisles thoughtfully.

What a selection. She sighed, going up to the cashier, who was watching her with sleepy eyes. "May I have a box, please?" The man gave her a puzzled look but went into a back room and came out with a cardboard carton, which he handed to her wordlessly. "Thank you." Tori took it over to the shelf and scooped the meager choices of Twinkies and other goods into it. She stuck to recognizable items, leaving some dubiously packaged sweet rolls behind, and lugged the box up to the front. "Ring that up, please." She told the man before she went to the freezer case and studied it. A brief grin crossed her lips, and she tugged the case open, retrieving an item and bringing it back to the cashier. "Okay." She paid the man, then claimed her box and followed Mary outside.

"I can't believe you're doing this." The woman commented, opening the trunk for her and watching as she put the box inside.

"Why?" Tori straightened. "Those people are going to be working all night. They don't run on batteries."

"Most people your level just give orders and don't care," Mary said bluntly, as they got back into the car. "And from what I heard about your boss, I didn't think she did either."

Tori leaned her arm against the door and rested her head against her hand. "She cares," she said, simply. "Way too much sometimes, I think."

"Did they send an Ethernet hub?" Jade leaned on the newly assembled racks and watched as yet another box was unpacked. The musty smell of the warehouse was almost completely overrun with the scent of newly opened electronics, and the worn and dirty carpet was covered with tired-looking techs busy making cables and assembling wiring harnesses.

"Yeah.. it's over there." The man she was addressing pointed without looking up, busy on his task and oblivious to the asker.

Jade didn't mind. She went over to the box he'd indicated and stuck her head inside, spotting the item she was looking for and tugging it out, pulling it free of the bubble wrap packing and dusting the top off. "Great." She limped over to a hastily set up table and set the box down, pulling a small pocket knife out of her jeans pocket and slitting the tape on the top of the container. Her eyes scanned the device, then she lifted it from its nest of packing and carried it over to the first rack, sliding it into place above the first of the routers and screwing it down. "There… if the patches are ready, we can start hooking these damn things up."

"Right." The facility manager agreed wearily, plugging the hub into power. "At least they sent surge suppressors.. but I'm glad we found those extension cords in the basement here."

"Mm.' Jade agreed, flipping the switches on the installed routers. "Oh shit… " She rubbed her temples. "I need a damn straight-through serial cable and 9pin to program these damn things."

John cursed softly. "Christ.. all right.. let me see what we have.. maybe I can have someone wire a piece of Cat 5 in serial."

Jade leaned against the rack for a moment, then straightened and moved over to where the telco technicians were screwing down two huge blocks and wiring. "How's it going?" She asked, examining the jacks. "Nice."

The nearer tech looked up. "Just about done.. ya got lucky, lady.. this is the only multi jack in this part of Colorado.. I got no idea how you got inventory to give it up to us."

Jade's nostrils flared. "I'd tell you, but I'd have to kill you." She joked faintly, recalling a twenty-minute, top of her lungs, cursing in two languages conversation with a mid-level infrastructure manager at the phone company. "Can we start plugging in?"

He finished one last screw into the peeling paint on the punch-down board. "Yeah…you got drop cables?" He looked up as Jade lifted a handful of the requested items. "Oh.. right." He took the handful and started plugging them in while Jade connected the other end to the equipment. "What time is it, anyhow?"

Jade checked her watch. "Four-thirty." She winced. "All right.. is the fiber drop in?"

"Almost." The man remarked, moving towards the door.

Jade finished her task, then she stepped back and regarded the assembly of equipment. "What a mess." There were wires everywhere, connecting the routers, and the interconnecting hubs, not to mention the power cables running everywhere. Green and red LEDs were beginning to blink on the routers, and she ran a hand through her hair, trying to shove back the exhaustion as she figured out what needed to happen next. Oh. Right. She pulled her cell phone out and dialed.

"MIS." The voice answered.

"Sinjin… okay.. we've got the... " Jade started.

"Circuits up.. yeah, I see them.. but they aren't terminated yet," Sinjin replied, amidst a rattle of keys. "Shit, that was fast, Jade.. what did you do, coerce the entire phone company?"

Jade sighed. "We got lucky... there were already terminator blocks in this damn warehouse… they just had to assign the pairs." She found a box to sit down on and took a deep breath. "That was the easy part... now I have to configure the routers, and get the fiber line in… and hope to god those damn mainframes are still running off the generator, or we're doing this for shit."

"You sound beat," Sinjin commented quietly.

"Been a long day." Jade acknowledged, letting her elbows rest on her knees and allowing her eyes to close momentarily. "Wish I had some... " She stopped talking and looked up as the smell of fresh coffee hit her nose, and found warm brown eyes gazing back at her. "Oh, are you a sight for sore eyes!" She murmured.

Sinjin chuckled in her ear. "Tell Tori I said hi." He remarked wryly

Tori handed her the large cup of coffee and took the phone from her. "Hi, Sinjin.. can we call you back?" She waited for the answer, then hung up. "Sorry, it took so long.. you have no idea how hard it is to find open places up here at this time of day." She looked around. "Wow."

Jade sucked on her coffee without comment, feeling some life come back into her as the warm, sweet liquid hit her stomach. "I was about to send out a search party." She advised her lover. "We've got the circuits up, but… " Jade let a tendril of doubt in. "Damn, Tori... I don't know if we can do this… there's just so much to get done." She cast a glance over her shoulder at the half-assembled system. "Maybe I was crazy to try."

Tori gazed at her in concern... Jade's face and her arms were covered with smudges of dust and dirt from the equipment, and there were dark circles under her eyes, visible even in the dim light. "Jade… if you didn't believe this was going to work. you wouldn't have done it." She sat down next to her boss. "I brought back food for everyone… that should help… and I can program the routers if you give me a chance to change first."

The bloodshot blue eyes lifted and regarded her. "That's right..you are Cisco certified, aren't you?" Jade let a reluctant smile tug her lips. "Go change... I have the making-up cables for the laptops… if we both work on it, we can get enough done so that the other techs can get in and start downloading the routing tables."

"You got it." Tori slung her bag over her shoulders and headed for the restroom, changing quickly and hanging her wet clothing next to Jade's. She returned to find her boss hunched over a box, studying the screen on her laptop. The silvery reflection flickered over her tanned features, which shifted as Tori put her own laptop down next to her. "Okay." The brunette woman smiled as a tech handed her a cable. "Thanks." She plugged it in and then ran the other end to one of the routers. "Oh. I'll be right back."

Jade nodded, absorbed in her screen. "Let's hope I remember how to do this." She muttered, shoving down her annoyance that they'd been unable to locate the hardware group for the facility, meaning that only she and Tori really knew how to get in and program the complicated devices. "It's been a while." The scent of cooked food spread through the room and most of the techs had wandered over to where Tori had left the boxes, leaving Jade in relative isolation as she puzzled through the software.

The screen started to fuzz out, and she stopped after what seemed like the twentieth screen, leaning back and rubbing her eyes, as her back protested against her hunched posture. "I think that's it.'" She commented to Tori, who knelt at her side. "Wh.. "

"Open wide," Tori instructed, capturing her gaze.

Jade stared, uncomprehending, then hesitantly opened her mouth, startled when a spoonful of cold, chocolate ice cream was deposited into it. She blinked a few times. "Mm." She swallowed the rich cream. "Was that Haagen Daz?"

"Yes," Tori informed her, offering up another spoonful. "And don't you ask me where I found chocolate Haagen Daz in the middle of Sleepy Boulder, okay?" She watched Jade's whole attitude perk up and was convinced if the dark-haired woman had possessed a tail, it would have wagged enthusiastically. "It's amazing what ice cream does to you, did you know that?"

Jade licked her lips. "Hey.. it beats recreational drugs." She remarked wryly. "What did you bring the rest of these guys?"

Tori glanced over her shoulder. "Bunch of hoagies, they are pretty good. Not as good as back east but good." She told her boss, taking a spoonful of ice cream for herself. "And a box of Twinkies, Snowballs, Ring Dings, and Mallomars."

The dark-haired woman covered her mouth quickly and stifled an almost hysterical laugh. "Did you get some?" She managed to ask. "Damn... I thought it was more.. uh… "

"You're joking, right?" Tori fed her more ice cream. "I'd like to live to get back to San Francisco, thanks.. and I got the lecture that yes, during the day, it's much more sophisticated around here… but those places roll up the sidewalks at night because all the workers go home."

"Well... " Jade accepted another spoon and chewed it contentedly. "It was a good idea, though... it might give everyone enough energy to get through the morning." She paused and regarded her lover. "So, no hoagie for you?"

Tori sucked on the spoon. "Um.. no... actually... I… " She made a tiny face. "I have a weakness for Snowballs." She admitted, a touch embarrassed. "That was enough sugar to get me going."

Jade laughed. "Ah! I see…. " She teased gently. "Those white ones, with the chocolate insides?"

Brown eyes batted their long lashes at her. "Yeah." She confessed, a little shamefacedly.

"Wanna share a pack?" Jade inquired one brow lifting.

Tori cleared her throat. "Oh.. no, I'm okay... I… " Then she glanced up. 'Well, maybe one."

Jade grinned, finding the energy to stand up and stretch. She could feel her own determination returning, and she glanced out over the room, planning her next move.