"Rollie? Hey, bad dream? You fell asleep while we were talking about what Alex Martel’s motives were…strange. You usually aren’t so uh, narcoleptic!"
 
 

"Narco-who? Sorry Ange, weird dream…bad dream…I dreamed Alex Martel was on this plane."
 
 

Angie shuddered. Rollie’s dreams were usually very prophetic and that was just regular dreaming. When he went into his dreaming…then those were right on target; "Were you doing a dreaming or were you asleep?" she asked.
 
 

Rollie yawned and smiled at her; "Regular dreaming, sorry- I am bushed! Dingo’s spy world and Taia darting in and out of all this stuff is going into nightmares in my head."
 
 

"You said Alex Martel was on the plane?"
 
 

"Um, had a gun on us and was going to answer your questions, Ange…then, hey- you woke me up."
 
 

"Sorry, you wanted to hear what he said?" Angie asked, sheepishly as Rollie grinned and kissed the bare skin of her shoulder near the cotton border of her sleeveless tank top.
 
 

"Not really…" he told her, looking down at her and then to Bastion’s sleeping face.
 
 

Angie smiled; "We are going to make some relaxation out of this little vacation, Rollie. Everything is going to go just fine now that we’ve left California and are going back to New York. I can feel it!"
 
 

"Promise, my little fortune teller?" he asked, making fun of her own prophecy.
 
 

She looked at him with exasperation and then a small smile, "I have to get up, Rol. I have to find the bathroom." She moved almost hastily as she lifted Bastion’s legs from her lap and quickly rose. Replacing his small legs on her seat, she moved, face toward Rollie around his legs to the aisle.
 
 

"Down the aisle, on the left, I think," he told her, touching her arm slightly as he shut his eyes again, relaxing.
 
 

Angie followed the aisle down to the back of the plane, the lights out in the cabin except for the floor lights. As she came to the last row of seats, a man who wasn’t sleeping looked up from what he was reading, and smiled at her. Angie returned the smile quickly and continued to her destination.
 
 

Once inside the small bathroom, she promptly threw up. She wasn’t sure if it was the plane trip or just jitters over Bastion and all the recent activity with Rollie and Dingo. She rinsed her face with cold water and looked up in the mirror, face dripping; "Keep it together, Angie!" she told herself.
 
 

She waited a few minutes, making sure she was over her nausea. Rubbing a hand through her hair, she thought about all the information she had received in such a short time about Dingo and even Taia. Dingo’s realism was frightening to her and the possibility of him dragging Rollie in to more of his world was something she couldn’t handle…not after Pollepel. Taia, on the other hand, had softened her feelings about the woman that Rollie had once loved. They shared a secret now and Angie shivered thinking about if it had been her. What would she have done in Taia’s place?
 
 

She took a deep breath and headed back up the aisle. The man who had been reading had stopped and was now resting, eyes closed. As she touched Rollie’s shoulder and came in front of him, he looked up at her; his all-knowing brown eyes fixed on her face.
 
 

"Got it all out of your system?" he asked, softly.
 
 

"What? How’d you…?"
 
 

"That greenish-yellow glow to your face before you left…all this stuff with Dingo and Taia getting to you." Rollie said, more in a statement of understanding and she realized that he really did know every nuance to her.
 
 

"I’m okay now, your dream was a little scary too, you know," she added as she sat down and put Bastion’s feet back in her lap.
 
 

"Sorry, sweetie, it just came out, you know."
 
 

"We’ve had a lot of truths coming out lately."
 
 

"I think there are still some more hanging around…"
 
 

"Jeez, not more of them…" Angie replied, cringing slightly as she thought about Bastion.
 
 

"He’s one of them," Rollie told her, pointing to Bastion.
 
 

"Poor thing, he’s probably very traumatized by all of this, Rol."
 
 

"Yeah, but I still am going to get to the bottom of this.."
 
 

"Why?"
 
 

"Because…"
 
 

"Rollie, he’s not your child…"
 
 

"Sure?"
 
 

"YES, Taia told me he was not yours, okay- for the final time."
 
 

"She told you whose child he was though, didn’t she?"
 
 

Angie didn’t look at him, she knew if she did, his eyes would sear right through her soul.
 
 

"Angie?"
 
 

"No!"
 
 

A light came on overhead with the ‘ping’ from the cockpit speaker; "we are beginning our final descent into La Guardia, folks. We should be on the ground in fifteen minutes, just a few planes ahead of us."
 
 

"Great, we’re home!" Angie remarked, changing the subject.
 
 

"I’m not through with you…" Rollie promised her, pointing a finger at her, scolding her like her father.
 
 

"I want to go by and get Aidan as soon as we get off the plane," Angie replied, knowing that if she reminded him of their own son, he would get off the inquisition into Bastion’s paternity.
 
 

"He’s probably grown a foot!" Rollie replied, smiling.
 
 

Angie mirrored his smile and inwardly, she felt the churning of her stomach again. She didn’t know how long she could keep Taia’s secret. Rollie was biting at the bit on this and she was not a good liar.
 
 

They landed just as the pilot had told them, some fifteen minutes later. Bastion woke, cheerful enough and Angie hugged him as he smiled, a lop-sided expression that took away all resemblance to Loubar.
 
 

Rollie carried Bastion as they made their way out of the plane to the airport interior. Bastion curled his arms around Rollie’s neck and Angie swallowed hard, seeing how taken Rollie was with the little boy. It would be hard for him to give him up to a stranger. As they came out of their arriving gate, the man that Angie had seen reading in the back of the plane passed them and gave a quick look to Angie as she frowned and watched his back as he strode quickly ahead of them. That face was familiar…that look he gave her….
 
 

"We’ll grab our bags and get some breakfast," Rollie commented, hearing his growling stomach as Bastion giggled.
 
 

"Sounds good, then we better get him to that address. I don’t like being out in the open like this with him," Angie replied, watching the crowd around them.
 
 

"You’re too spooked by spooks," Rollie told her, smiling and trying to allay her fears, "Martel wants Taia, not the kid."
 
 

"But Bastion is the key to Taia’s heart. Martel isn’t stupid. Dingo is with Taia, I think he would go for Bastion first," Angie reminded him.
 
 

"We were careful. I know that Vanduran and Luce were careful…" Rollie replied.
 
 

"I know…"
 
 

"Come on, let’s get out of here," he told her, taking her hand.
 
 

They ate in the airport, surrounded by busy, commuting people and then grabbed their baggage left on the carousel. As Rollie stepped out near a cab, to hand the driver the bags; a limousine pulled up beside the cab. The man that Angie had seen on the plane and in the crowd in front of them at the airport started to get in it and she wondered then, seeing the limo, why the man hadn’t flown first class?
 
 

In the cab, they headed toward Manhattan as Rollie gave the driver the address for B. Geste. Angie smiled, seeing her city again and vanquished all thoughts about living anywhere else. I must have been crazy, she told herself as she saw the twin towers and the activity already buzzing around them.
 
 

Rollie was on the cellphone, calling Francis and Sarah. His eagerness to hear Aidan’s voice was rewarded with the sound of a babbling boy who at one point, after coaching from Sarah on the other end, spoke the cherished words to Rollie. Rollie smiled, putting a hand over his heart as Angie giggled and Bastion followed suit.
 
 

"He’s a smart kid, our son," Rollie told Angie who shook her head and marveled at Rollie’s own, little boy essence still inside him.
 
 

"Smart as his daddy, no doubt at that age," Angie reminded him.
 
 

"No doubt," Rollie told her and then quickly added; "but cunning like his mother…"
 
 

"Hmmm," she replied, knowing he was digging at her still. He knew she knew more about Bastion and would keep up with this until she gave him what he wanted. She made a mental note to herself to stock up on fortitude for the upcoming days.
 
 

As they reached their destination, both Rollie and Angie looked up in surprise. There was no apartment building at the address from Taia. It was a small, corner shop with Chinese symbols on the door.
 
 

"This can’t be it, number 101?" Rollie asked, as the cab driver pointed to the number on the awning over the shop door and indeed, the number 101 was painted in bold, white numbers.
 
 

Rollie looked around to the other buildings nearby. They followed in suit, the shop next to 101, marked as 103 and so on.
 
 

"Stay in the car, Angie. I am going to check out this shop. This can’t be right."
 
 

"Okay…" she murmured and held on to Bastion as she watched Rollie approach the shop.
 
 

It was barely nine o’clock as Rollie knocked on the door. He could see it was some sort of herb shop, medicinal remedies and such but the lights were not on and he waited, knocking again.
 
 

A black limo approached, blocking the cab from leaving the curb and as Angie watched Rollie’s back, she also could see that the limo door was opening and she started to panic. Something was wrong!
 
 

"Rollie!" she screamed as he turned back, looking over his shoulder. The door to the Chinese shop opened at that second and Rollie’s attention was turned back to the door.
 
 

Before she could lock the cab door on the street side, it opened and she looked into the face of the man, that same man from the airport, the plane… he held a gun to her forehead, scooping up Bastion in his strong left arm. Bastion started to scream and kick as Angie sat motionless, feeling the barrel of the gun pressed firmly against her skull.
 
 

"Back off, Ronald McDonald!" he said to her, with a sharp, sarcastic warning to her and she instantly put the clown’s face to the man that held the gun on her…they matched…without make-up, without wig…Alex Martel!
 
 

Backing out of the cab, the cab driver lying in the front seat, hands over his head, Martel suddenly smiled. He looked over at the shop where Rollie was standing and then back at Angie. She was about to scream, she could feel it coming up in her throat.
 
 

"Adieu…and ‘boom’," he said, grinning as he backed into the limo, with Bastion’s fitful, screaming body safely in his arms. The limo pulled out in a screech of tires as Angie reacted out of sheer terror, opening the sidewalk side door to the cab.
 
 

"ROLLIE!"