"Daddadadada…." Aidan chattered as Rollie enveloped his small body in an embrace, his eyes shutting tightly. Angie felt terrible, unrelenting guilt swelled up in her as she looked at Rollie and he opened his eyes; their watery redness revealing his pain.
 
 

"I’m sorry…I’m so sorry, Rollie- I just didn’t think …I wanted to get out and take Aidan someplace where we could just be away from all that misery and …" Angie had begun to cry and it wasn’t like her to do so in such a public place.
 
 

Aidan had begun to protest his father’s violent hug and squirmed until he let out a high pitched squeal, startling Rollie into releasing him back to Angie.
 
 

"Let’s get out of this raceway…" Rollie told her, slightly tugging on her jacket sleeve. His voice was low and if she hadn’t already been crying, she would have started, hearing his tone.
 
 

They began to walk toward customs, Angie wiping her eyes with the sleeve of her jacket as Aidan watched her, frowning slightly as he patted his small hand against her cheek and touched the wetness. Angie went through the motions of giving the customs officer her family passport while Rollie pulled his own out, never taking his eyes off his family. The customs officer at check-in stamped their passport, granting visas, hardly noting the woman with the child had been crying. Once they made their way through the concourse, Rollie once again, pulled at Angie’s jacket sleeve without a word, motioning her toward an eatery and a table.
 
 

They sat in silence for what seemed an incredible amount of time. Rollie was looking at Angie, wondering what on earth had possessed her actions. Angie was looking at her lap. Aidan was standing in the seat beside her, holding onto the table and slapping his hands on the surface, talking gibberish as he tried to get his parents’ attention.
 
 

It was Angie who finally looked up, her eyes finally making contact with Rollie’s. He saw nothing but her tortured soul now, and closed his eyes as if he suddenly felt the pain she had been suffering since their hastened arrival in New York.
 
 

A ray of sunlight beamed inside the window by them, crossing the table and temporarily blinding Rollie from Angie’s view. But his hand reached across the table then and Angie let out a small, startled cry as he took her hand in his. He got up in her moment of surprise and came over to her, taking her swiftly in his arms as she hid her face in his chest. Aidan watched his parents with vague interest; the salt and peppershakers were the more interesting items at the moment for him.
 
 

"Angie…"
 
 

"I’m so sorry…"
 
 

"It’s okay, now…you’re safe and Aidan is okay…you scared me!"
 
 

Angie tightened her grip on his hand as she looked up at him, seeing the fear in his eyes as well as the relief.
 
 

"I just couldn’t take it anymore, Rollie. Our families are like a horrible spy soap opera, and the more they explained, the sicker I got. Do you know…? I don’t even feel safe with my memories of my childhood anymore!"
 
 

Rollie nodded, "It’s been a mind-opener, yes…and with Manny and your mother and Guillarmo involved in this jewel business along with my father and Martel; it’s unreal, it’s…."
 
 

"Ridiculous!"
 
 

"Absurd…"
 
 

"Crazy…"
 
 

The sound of a pair of salt and pepper shakers hitting the floor brought their attention back to their neglected offspring, who was making his presence known with renewed fervor.
 
 

"I remember this kind of behavior!" Angie replied, picking up the shakers, smiling slightly as Rollie pulled Aidan into his lap and kissed him on his cheek, talking baby talk into his little ears as Aidan giggled.
 
 

"It’s only been six days… can you believe it? …since we left New York for California and now…Angie, what the bloody hell are we doing in Spain?" Rollie asked, pulling Aidan to a standing position. Aidan had firmly planted his small but bulky sneakers into father’s groin as Rollie made a face to Aidan and lifted him up in the air; "Aidan, my son, we need to talk about your fancy foot work!"
 
 

Angie smiled, seeing them together, that moment etched in her memory to last a lifetime as she then answered Rollie hesitantly; " I wanted to see my mother…I wanted to just…well, see, you know- see if there is a tattoo on her, to believe all this is hard and uh, I don’t know- she might say something or do something to help me understand this better…because Rollie, I have to understand it better, you know or I’ll go crazy!"
 
 

Angie had started to rambled but Rollie did understand her and he pulled her tightly to him in the booth, kissing the top of her head and closed his eyes for a moment, breathing in deeply before speaking; "Once you see Marta, maybe then, you can help me understand what Dingo did and why…and why Loubar and Martel wanted to hurt us all so badly."
 
 

Angie bit her lip but she knew she had to ask; "Had anyone decided what to do next about Bastion after I left?"
 
 

"No, they were all blaming each other, I’m afraid!" he answered, shaking his head and pulling away from her then, his mind recalling that scene at the safehouse.
 
 

"I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have run out of there. Poor Taia must be frantic about Bastion!"
 
 

Rollie looked down at her and saw real fear in her eyes but he had to tell her something now that he knew would shock her;
 
 

"She made a choice…she’ll have to live with it."
 
 

His words were strangely flat and cold. As he looked at Angie, he saw that shock register in her face as she stared at him, her mouth slightly opened.
 
 

"What? Loubar tricked her, Rollie- just like me! But she was left with more of Loubar than just a memory, she had his flesh and blood!"
 
 

"She didn’t have to have him, you know…"
 
 

"I don’t believe this, coming from you?"
 
 

"Get used to it, I’m starting to see how my father, Taia, even Guillarmo- used us…to get to something, something so small and …yet ..."
 
 

"Powerful! My God, Rollie…this piece of rock could finally finish that weapon that Martel has been trying to complete for what? Almost forty years? You would think that a much more powerful weapon could have been created in that time frame, wouldn’t you? Does it make sense to you? Because, it’s so crazy to me!"
 
 

"Do you get the feeling that we have had our lives manipulated since birth?" Rollie suddenly asked, looking at her, his face hardening.
 
 

"Yeah, if you mean like fate, and no, if you mean like a master spy plan, Rol!"
 
 

He blinked, shaken a bit as she held that look on her face, the determined Ramirez frown that he remembered so well from Manny. Manny, a spy too? It just didn’t register for him. He felt like a puppet whose strings had just been cut. He was floundering and flopping around, his moments not graceful but clumsy.
 
 

"I’m lost on all this, Angie…" he told her then as she raised her eyebrows, then relaxed the muscles in her face as he smiled.
 
 

"Yeah, well- we need to sleep first…might help sort things out a bit…but there is this one thing, Rollie…do you forgive me for doing this crazy thing?" she asked, the guilt still there, raw and gnawing at her.
 
 

"Do you forgive me for getting involved in something without knowing the answers first?" he countered.
 
 

"Do you want to go back and help find Bastion for Taia?" she then asked, instead of answering him.
 
 

"Dingo and your uncle are helping her. I’m with my family on what’s left of our escape vacation."
 
 

Angie blinked. She couldn’t believe what she had just heard him say!
 
 

"Ah, by the way, do we have money for a hotel now that you must have taken the SST over here?"
 
 

"Actually, we’re down to our last plastic, dear. Looks like we don’t spend but a day or two here, sweetie and it’s back to New York to work for the rest of our lives!"
 
 

"That’s okay…working is good, for the rest of our lives, I can live with…but what I can’t live without…is you…" Angie told him, lowering her eyes for a second. The quick brush of his lips on hers was his response as he then deeply and slowly told her that his troth would never be broken.
 
 

"Where is the stone?" Alex Martel asked the surprised group of familiars in the safehouse.
 
 

"How…?" Guillermo began but Martel waved the E/M weapon toward him and smiled.
 
 

"I simply walked in as if I wanted some insurance, Monty…once they couldn’t satisfy my need for coverage, well…I just lost my temper. Now, how long can I hold it here, is the question, no?" Martel asked, his snide comments grating on Guillermo as if he had stepped back in time to Geste Prison. The torture sessions that Martel had instigated suddenly came back with disturbing clarity as Guillermo felt the bile rising in his throat at the mention of the nickname that Martel used to call him from so long ago.

"Please, give me back my son!" Taia said, her voice barely audible through clenched teeth as she sat stiffly on the couch.
 
 

"NO!" Martel’s answer was swift and ugly as Taia cowered beneath him.
 
 

"The stone, Tyler…NOW!"
 
 

"Wow, this place is familiar!" Angie commented, flinging her flight bag down as they entered the hotel room. Rollie followed, carrying Aidan.
 
 

"Agumar Hotel…fond memories…" he replied, smiling as Angie went onto the immediate task of toddler proofing the room.
 
 

She shut the shades in the room, yawning and marveling at Rollie who had put Aidan on one of the double beds in the room and was busy taking off his clothes.
 
 

"Oh, this is foul!" he commented, wiping his hand back and forth in front of him as he pulled off Aidan’s diaper. Aidan made sure to grunt his amusement over his father’s uncomfortable posture.
 
 

Angie swiftly grabbed the diaper bag, rescuing Rollie from the almost death- gripping task at hand. Rollie stood back and apprised the exercise, offering his advice on the proper tightness of the disposable diaper.
 
 

"Seems a bit snug, Angela…" he offered.
 
 

"Nope, unless you like things oozing from around…"
 
 

"Don’t go there…"
 
 

"And you call yourself, the king of horror effects!"
 
 

With Aidan finally asleep, after giving him a light feeding, Angie and Rollie took to the other bed. Angie had bolstered the sides of Aidan’s bed with pillows on either side and was satisfied that he wouldn’t roll off.
 
 

They were both profoundly tired but watched together as Aidan slept at first, watching their son as his chest rose and fell evenly and smiled to themselves as he made soft sucking noises, his lids active with dreams.
 
 

"I see he’s already started the dreaming…" Rollie commented, his arms around Angie as she lay with her back to him, arched into his warmth.
 
 

"That’s just REM, Rollie…"
 
 

"Nah…it’s dreaming…the dreaming…he’s got the Tyler way about him…" Rollie said, yawning again as his nose took in the smell of Angie’s hair, his lips brushing the nape of her neck.
 
 

"I’m sorry, again…Rollie, about this trip to Spain…I wasn’t thinking straight…"
 
 

"Shhh, none of that! Night, sweetie…"
 
 

His hand brushed her shoulder as she smiled slightly, feeling safe and secure again. He had actually followed her to Spain and had the gumption to get there ahead of her! Her smile widened at his gesture of love and honor to her.
 
 

"I love you…" she said softly, twisting his wedding band around his finger in front of her, his hand resting against her forearm.
 
 

"I adore you… now go to sleep!" he told her, firmly.

"I gave the stone to Michael Lopez over two years ago here, in New York!" Dingo replied, hands on hips as he was not threatened by Martel’s weapon pointed at him.
 
 

"Nice try, Tyler…but the stone you surrendered to that black ops group was a fake, a good one, but a fake, none the less!" Martel countered as a look of shock registered on Dingo’s face.
 
 

Dingo’s mind began to race. Rollie had made a paste of the stone for him so that they could keep the stone safe while in New York with Dorinda. In fact, Rollie had kept the real stone safely hidden inside that robot dog of his for awhile as well. He couldn’t believe his son would have switched the stone again, not realizing the real significance of it…but who could have made the switch?
 
 

"Martel, I swear…I thought I had the real stone!" Dingo replied, putting his hands up in the air.
 
 

"And that lie just sealed your fate, mate," Martel answered, as he mocked Dingo’s Australian accent, releasing the trigger on the weapon as he pointed it at Dingo’s face.