"Well, to each their own," the magnate pronounced.

"Hey, Dar?" Alastair turned around and faced her. "Can you think of a reason why the government's looking for me?"

Dar stared at him in momentary bewilderment. "What?"

Her boss held up his PDA. "Bea just messaged me that she got a call from Washington asking where I was, and could they talk to me."

Sir Melthon held his silence, looking between his two guests with a look of absorbed interest.

Dar folded her hands together. "Well," she considered, "we do have a lot of accounts with them." Her brow creased. "But this is hardly the time for them to be asking about contracts and we're already doing everything possible and some things not possible to keep things rolling."

"Exactly," Alastair said. "Ah, maybe it was a mistake. Someone following up on something that doesn't really matter today, probably."

Dar nodded. "Happens sometimes. People focus on small stuff when they can't handle the big." She agreed. "We've got a lot of work to do, though. Those six sat trucks aren't even going to be a drop in the bucket with all the lines we lost."

Alastair exhaled, forking up a piece of brisket. "Should we even be worrying about that, Dar? Lot of people lost a lot of things, including their lives there today. What the hell do our circuits matter, really? Everyone's going to understand if things aren't back to normal by tomorrow." He looked uncharacteristically grim. "I feel like a bit of an ass listening to us go crazy there on the link when people are lying under tons of debris on the south end of Manhattan."

There was a small silence. Dar picked up a rib and bit into the side of it. "Alastair," she said, after she finished chewing. "What are our options? Do nothing and just watch CNN all day? We can't help those people."

"Well, yes but..."

"We can, however, work our asses off keeping people communicating with each other." Dar cut him off. "That's what our people are doing. That's what Kerry's doing, making space for people stuck in Canada trying to send mail home and make arrangements, or keeping the cell centers connected, or people's ATM cards working. We do what we do. We're doing more to help the damn country than ninety percent of the planet."

"Woman speaks the truth." Sir Melthon broke in. "It's been damned impressive to watch. Wasn't looking for a practical demonstration of your abilities, McLean, but I'm no idiot not to take advantage of the opportunity."

Alastair sighed. "Of course, and thanks," he said.

"It's just such a rotten excuse for it."

Dar finished her rib and wiped her fingers, then picked up her glass of tea and took a swallow. She understood Alastair's frustration. At least she had something she could do, instead of just listen. "I'm going to give Kerry's throat a break," she said. "Last thing she needs is laryngitis."

Her boss managed a smile at that. "Bet she wishes you were there," he said.

"We both wish we were home." Dar answered, sliding her chair back to face the screen and keying her mic. "Ker?"

There was a scuffing noise. "Here."

"Go take a break," Dar said. "Drink some hot tea. You're starting to sound like a frog. I've got this for a little while."

Kerry cleared her throat. "Ah. Yeah." She sounded grateful. "Thanks boss. Any word on flights?"

Dar had to smile. "Not so far," she said. "They're still working on it."

Her partner sighed. "Okay. I'll be back in a few." She clicked off and Dar settled down to watch the screen, consciously aware of how far she was from home. "One problem, Alastair." She glanced over at him. "We'll be in the air a hell of a long time."

"I know," Alastair said, rubbing his eyes. "I know."

Too much happening, too fast. Dar rested her chin on her hands. Now that the immediate threat seemed to be on hold for the moment and she had time to reflect, her mind was starting to churn over with all the problems she now had to worry about.

Getting home. Getting Kerry home. Finding out about their people. Finding out about Gerry.

Figuring out how this was going to change their world.

KERRY RETREATED TO the solarium with her big mug of tea and honey, curling up on the bench as she let the silence and the rich, green smell sooth her nerves. Her ears still felt like they were ringing with all the voices and the sounds from the television, and it took her a few minutes before her mind wound down and she could relax.

She hitched the knee of her jeans up and rested one socked foot on the opposite knee, comfortable in her T-shirt in the relatively warm air.

She sipped her tea, grateful for the warm sweetness as it slid down her throat, and more than grateful to her partner for taking over the reins for a while so she could have a chance to chill out and collect her scattered thoughts.

Thank goodness for Dar. What would she do without her? Kerry thought about some of the things that had gone on and how if just a few things had been different how they could have so easily been affected more dangerously.

It felt good to just sit quietly, out of the limelight, and away from the watching eyes of her family and her mother's aides. She thought she'd done a very credible job so far, but she felt exhausted from all the emotional and intellectual turmoil of the past few hours.

The television had just been showing shots of people being recovered from the Pentagon. Kerry had sat there watching with a sense of odd disconnection, knowing some of the people on the screen were surely known to her by name, but not by sight.

Then they'd shown a press conference from New York. How many were dead? No one knew. Or else, no one wanted to say, all the mayor kept repeating was that it was more than they could bear. People were shell shocked, literally.

Terrorism. Kerry remembered, vaguely, her father once talking about the country's tendency to serve its own best interests being good for business, but bad for politics and she wondered if that notion was finally coming home and proving him right.

Odd. Roger Stuart had never been a friend of the rest of the world. He'd been an America first supporter for as long as Kerry could remember, but now she had a sense that despite his views, he'd understood more of the truth of the world than he'd preached to his constituents.

She thought about how he'd have reacted to what had happened. She suspected he'd have been at the head of the line urging retaliation immediately. Eye for an eye. He'd been that kind of man, something that had always made her very uncomfortable and had led to him doing his best to interfere in her life.

It was internally very surprising to her to find she had more of an understanding of that viewpoint than she'd imagined. She could think about these people, who had destroyed so much and hurt so many, and knew in her heart what she felt for them wasn't anything close to compassion.

A little shocking.

"Hey Ker." Angie entered the solarium, and took a seat on the other swinging bench.

"Mm." Kerry lifted her mug in her sister's direction.

"I was just listening to Dar talk on the computer. She's got a little Southern accent, doesn't she? I never noticed it before."

Kerry was quite happy to focus her thoughts on her partner for a minute. "Hm." She considered the question. "A little, yeah," she agreed. "Not all the time. It comes and goes."

"I like it," Angie said.

"Me too." Kerry smiled. "When she's around her father a lot, it gets more pronounced because he has one, and sometimes when we spend time down in the keys, too." She spent a moment thinking about Dar's voice, hearing the faint drawl echoing in her imagination. "Wish she was here."

"I bet you do," Angie said. "Is Mom being in there freaking you out?"

Kerry swung back and forth a few times. "Not really," she finally said. "I mean, there are a lot of other people on there listening to me, you know?"

"Not in the same room."

"No," Kerry admitted. "I think it's freaking her out a little."

"It was freaking me out," Angie said. "It was all happening so fast. But you just handled everything like it was an everyday thing," she added. "It was such a weird contrast to that conference Mom was on. No one knew anything."

"Mm." Her sister grunted agreement, as she slowly sipped her tea. "Or didn't want to admit anything," she said. "After all, we have whole chunks of the government we pay a lot of money for that are supposed to keep this kind of thing from happening."

"Well, I'm sure they tried. I mean, who'd ever have thought someone would fly a plane into a building?" Angie asked. "I mean, you think about bombs and stuff, not things like that."

Maybe that was true. Kerry leaned back and let her head rest against the chain support of the swing. The sun was pouring in the windows of the solarium and it warmed her skin, providing her with some quiet peace as the silence lengthened between them.

"Richard's dropping Sally off here," Angie finally said after about five minutes. "He thinks he might have to go to Washington for his firm."

Kerry started back to alertness from the light haze she'd fallen into. "Oh," she said. "Well, it'll be nice to see her anyway," she said. "How long has he had her?"

"Only a week. He picked her up a few days before you got here," Angie said. "I'm glad. Not that he has to go to Washington but I'd feel better with her here. Things are so weird." She gazed at her sister with a smile. "And she can't wait to see her Aunt Kerry."

Kerry returned the smile. "Ah well." She finished her tea. "I'm going to go back in there and see what Dar is up to. She's the one who's under pressure, really. Alastair's right there next to her and they're in front of our new clients."

She got up, a little surprised at how tired she felt. She waited for Angie to precede her and then followed her sister out of the solarium and through the hallway, checking her watch as they entered the big entranceway where several of the Senator's aides were gathered talking.

The voices cut off as soon as they were recognized. Kerry and Angie exchanged wry looks. "Some things never change," Angie commented, as they walked past and pushed open the door to their father's former office.

"Isn't that the truth?" Kerry glanced around, spotting her mother talking with another aide near the far wall, while her laptop sat quietly on the desk, a soft murmur of voices coming from it. She went over and sat down behind the desk, reaching down to pull her socks up a little as she glanced at the screen to see if anything had radically changed.

"Kerrison?" Cynthia left the aide standing near the other door and came over to the desk. "It seems that it's felt we all, that is the Congress, should all go immediately to Washington to show our support in this horrible time."

Kerry rested her elbows on the desk. "Well, I guess that does make sense," she said. "But--is it safe?" she asked. "Weren't they evacuating Washington?"

Her mother perched on the edge of the desk. "Well, that did come up," she said. "But the general thought was, for that reason especially we should all go and show we aren't afraid," she explained. "Ah, I think the term was, show the flag."

Kerry stared at her for a long moment. "Mother," she said. "That's idiotic."

"Kerrison."

"I'm sorry, but it is. If you have people who are willing to fly airplanes into buildings, what's to say they're not also willing to drive trucks into the front of the Capitol?" Kerry asked. "They're not even sure who did it yet."

Her mother sighed. "That actually did occur to me, as well as to several others," she said. "However, as I say, the consensus is that we need to come together and show support and I am not entirely sure that's wrong either. We must set an example for the country, after all."

Kerry caught a motion out of the corner of her eye and she focused on the screen, surprised to see a familiar figure sitting in the corner of her desktop, holding up a sign. "Will work for hugs," she murmured. "Oh sweetie."

"Excuse me?" her mother asked.

"Sorry." Kerry tore her eyes from the forlorn looking Gopher Dar. "Mother, I understand what they mean. I just hope it turns out that everyone stays safe, and they're not part of another catastrophe."

Her mother looked more than a bit discomfited. "Yes, well--" She looked around, then looked back at her daughter. "You know it was so curious to me that really, you had so much more information than we did during this morning's horrible events."