Long before sunrise, the warehouse would be cleaned out. It had been purchased under the name Randy Vickers, but Diana was fairly certain he had other names, too. People like him always did. The crew packed up everything from photographs and editing equipment to the contents of a small laboratory in the basement.

"Screwy son of ....He made his own drugs?" Hawk muttered as he opened cabinets and drawers filled with powders, liquids and various drug paraphernalia. "What the hell is that?" He attempted to read the label on a bottle of white powder.

A stifled chuckle came from behind him. Falcon, the second in command of the medical team, had read the label. "It says powdered oysters in Latin. In case you're interested, the one next to it is pulverized bulls' testicles."

Hawk's face took on a disgusted expression. "You are joking, right?"

"No, I'm as serious as you are when you go on a drinking binge," she said dryly.

"That bad, huh?"

"Yes," Falcon said as she started wrapping and packing the bottles.

"This whole place is creepy and ingenious all at the same time," Diana announced as she moved room to room with Hawk. The team emptied each room after the pair searched them.

At the back of the warehouse, they found a greenhouse filled with Colleen's favorite flowers. Roses, honeysuckle, orchids, heather, and so much more. The smell was beautiful but overwhelming to two people with enhanced senses. With a gloved hand, Diana carefully lifted one of the roses, "Floribunda, tea roses," she paused and went silent as she spotted cascading rose bush in the corner of the greenhouse. It was blue, her mother's favorite color. It wasn't just a blue rosebush, however. Based on pictures Diana had seen, it was a large version of Colleen's wedding bouquet. That made her shake her head. "Try to preserve that, will you," she addressed two crew members that had come after her. "It's not the plant's fault the guy that grew it was a sick fuck." The greenhouse answered one question, it was how he got the flowers without a florist in town having remember him or the arrangements he'd sent.

"You ready to look at the second level?" Hawk gestured to the stairway.

"Let's do this thing."

They headed up.

The pair walked into what looked like a hotel corridor. "You think there are actual rooms in here, Dee?"

"One way to know." She gave him a Cheshire cat smile. "Start opening doors." Several doors in the hallway were opened to reveal storage closets. Two, however were rooms. Diana froze a moment as she took in what looked an older, but high class hotel suite. She paced off the perimeter out of habit.

Hawk poked around in the bathroom and hauled out a suitcase. "This goes with us. There's another bag in there, but you might want to look at it being there are feminine frillies and all." He grinned.

Pale blue eyes rolled to show her annoyance. "I think you've mistaken me for Nicole or Chelle. They're the clotheshorses in the family." Diana searched the train case that was in the bathroom. "Jewelry, toilet articles," Diana shuffled through the bag's contents, "expensive perfume and cosmetics." Her voice faltered as she noticed a familiar piece of jewelry. Diana carefully separated the clasped hands of the puzzle ring. It revealed not three, but four linked hearts beneath. "Hawk, check this out!" she called as she headed back into the bedroom of the suite.

"Whatever it is, it can't match what I'm looking at," his voice was coming from the balcony outside the sitting room. He was looking out at a perfect reproduction of the Roman Coliseum and part of Rome that surrounded it. It wasn't just that place, but a specific time of day. Sunset, Colleen's favorite time. He deemed it to be a well done hologram, it was far too detailed to be a painting.

"Don't be so sure," Dee called as she made her way out to him. "Not only did this guy know our family history, was trying to ...." Silence, there was silence, as she stared at the vision before her.

Hawk grinned. He knew that look, a mixture of fascination and curiosity. "We have the TD from the fifty, extra point for the conversion, and three for the field goal!" His expression was smug when he asked, "So, what?d you find?"

She held out the ring in her upturned palm. It was his turn to look stupefied. "It's not right," she whispered. "Three not four. Chelle, me, and Auggy." Her pale blue eyes met Hawk's. "AJ, that's what we started calling him."

"I know," Hawk muttered as he stared at the ring in Diana's hand.

She gave him a pointed look. "You ought to." She tucked the ring into her flightsuit pocket and zipped it up. A similar ring had been worn by her mother, Kirin. While not known to the general public, Kirin Fand had been a name used by Colleen when she arrived to prevent her younger self from making a foolish mistake. The hearts in the third circle of the ring represented each of the children that had been borne to her mother and sired by a Maran. Augustus, however, had been Kirin's child and not Colleen's. "Crazy family tree," was all Diana said they left the room. She was mindful of the information that Bridget Dillon had passed along. Dee been unusually quiet as they walked down the corridor to what looked the door to a second hotel suite.

"Say it." He knew she needed to.

"I just left the fourth in the morgue." Her eyelids shuttered closed. "It's what Dillon was saying all along. The genetics matched."

"What do we do now?" He knew the answer, it was always the same. Or was it?

Diana steeled herself and her pale blue met Hawk's. "What we always do," she paused as if considering something, "Michael." The name of the archangel suited him better than it seemed to. "Pick up our weapons, drive onward and do what we must."

He finished it, "When it's done, we dance." His pale eyes narrowed. "Or in this case, we bury our dead."

She nodded once.

"Where haven't we been?"

Hawk leaned closer to study the scene. "Water pipes." He pointed them out to Diana. "We need to find the entry to the basement level."

She ran her finger along the image of thinner pipelines. "I've seen these before. People with indoor fountains have them. Let's check the garden room." As they walked out, Diana made it a point to inform the team that room she'd just left wasn't cleared yet.

A trap door that had been hidden under the giant wedding bouquet was opened to reveal a ladder. Hawk, Diana, and two crew members made their way down into the dimly lit basement. Diana's face mutated into a disgusted expression as the smell of formaldehyde hit her nose. She turned to Hawk as they spoke simultaneously, "Something's dead in here."

Had she been a weaker soul, Diana's stomach would have been churning as the smell got stronger. She stopped cold in an archway. "Hawk, you're with me. Parker, Nolan, secure the area and look for other rooms down here. Unless you're called stay out of this one."

Parker and Nolan tipped their commander a two fingered salute and went on their way. All they found was a rack of what seemed to be cleaning supplies.

Hawk was somewhat of a mystery to anyone but Diana. She was the only one he had ever trusted. There were suspicions and implications about who he was and where he had come from. Dee had never needed to be told, she just knew. They kept each other's secrets. This was probably going to be one of them.

"She can never know about this. Do you understand?" she spoke to Hawk as she upnodded at the sight that met their eyes.

"Yeah, I get that, but what about the body that was found" We can't hide that one. It's been all over the news."

"We'll have to soften the blow on that one. She'll ask and you know damned well she'll dig until she gets answers that satisfy her."

"What clued in the M.E.?"

"Dillon did," Diana murmured as she looked over the collection of specimen jars in front of her. She paused to study each one in turn. She was experiencing train wreck syndrome. Staring in horrified fascination as the development had been frozen in time for each one. People that questioned the evolution of mankind of earth would have had every question answered if only they paid attention to fetal development more closely. A single cell formed from even tinier matter passed through several stages including wormlike and amphibious ones to the familiar two legged mammalian one.

"Dillon?" Dark brows shot up. "You mean ?"

"She's been in Rhydin for years."

"Her off....children?" he corrected himself.

"One survivor. A daughter, but she's away from here."

"For now," he took a deep breath, "for now. How'd she peg it?"

"She had a slim edge over the ME. She knew what she was looking at." Diana stopped in front of the jar with the fully formed fetus and shook her head. "Could be me in there."

Hawk knew that all too well. He snapped his fingers to help get her back on track. "Fury, focus. What'd Dillon find?"

"Genetic markers like ....mine." That explained it all, didn't it' "Maran DNA." Diana studied each of the specimens that could have been a person if allowed to live.

That was all Hawk needed to know. The puzzle pieces clicked together in his mind. "So, these," he gestured to the specimen jars, "are his attempts to clone her?"

"Or so he thought." Diana carefully opened the drawers in a desk next to the display that had unsettled her. "He had notes on it in what you and I leafed through in the lab. Dillon said Riverview's M.E. is really sharp and would have caught it given time, but time wasn't something we could afford with a life in the balance."

"Right," he muttered in annoyance.

She hadn't missed that tone. "Specifically, eye color, Hawk. With what he took, the pale blue was dominant and he couldn't recreate hers."

"Some people just never learn that science and magic are closer than they realize." He grinned then his dark brows furrowed. "Wait, you're saying that all of this," he gestured at the display in front of him, "was because he couldn't pinpoint the genotype or is it phenotype," it was rhetorical, he knew the answer, "that this is the result' Dead," he held his hands out, "kids" Do we call them kids?"

"That, Michael, is an ethical and religious discussion that I'd rather not be getting into right now."

"The discussion begins, Diana, if any of these creatures are alive." It was not the happy-go-lucky voice that crew was used to. "I'll get Geraldine down here. This is her area."

"Hawk?" she paused a moment. "Get her down here, but only her. The three of us should be able to do this. Clear the first floor and bar entry to garden. I want as little traffic in here as possible. Send Parker and Nolan back to base and tell them we'll need transport for sensitive medical samples. They don't need to know what kind."

"I'm on it," he said as he went to follow through on the orders. For Diana, he always followed through.

October 2012 - Log entry - Misfit Squadron Commander

The last few months have been hard on the family. Hell, the last year has. Here's to the closing of this year being better than what has transpired so far.

The hardest thing for me was coping with Robert's passing. I wish I could understand what drives a person to end their own life. Especially someone that seemed to have everything to live for. I guess we can never really know what goes on inside someone else's head. It is events like that which teach us to appreciate what we do have. It was hardest on Stephen. I think he will always wonder if there was anything he could have done for his brother. In the last moments of our lives, we stand alone. Laid bare before whatever comes next on the journey.

The team has sifted through piles of notes. There are photographs as well as video and audio recording of things that delve deeply into Mother's past. Names that I've never even heard her mention were noted there. Geraldine has found at least a three dozen herbal and designer drug mixtures that answered a lot of questions. That lab was how he made his living. Selling on the streets.

The most revealing thing has been a DVD with the perp's confession. It explains why he did this. No matter who Mother had been with, Randy would have been jealous. Randy Vickers was the name on the warehouse paperwork, but I doubt it was his real name. His goal, which I'm thankful he didn't succeed in, was not just to take my mother as his permanent captive. He believed that she was his angel and not just in the sense of someone that had rescued him. He knew what her previous lifetime had been and was somehow connected to her. Based on the evidence, Vickers believed that she'd been promised to him. She wasn't, but the minds of mad men work in mysterious ways.

I guess he assumed that Fenner being human and not magically gifted meant that he'd be a pushover. Talk about lack of observational skills! A man that thinks he's lost everything he had to live for is like a wounded animal. Dangerous. It is amazing we're capable of when we're shoved into a corner like that. Instinct or training, whichever is stronger kicks in and we run with it.

I have a dossier ready for Fenner on everything we found related to what Vickers did to her. I doubt Mother had the chance to tell him about the last of the pictures that were delivered, let alone what she was subjected to by that murdering slime. The audio tape that had been sent along with it was bits and pieces of various conversations. She was forced to watch him die just as he thought she was dead.

Mother has always been good about burying certain emotions so deeply that a dozen dead bodies could be stacked on top of each other in that grave. She was raped, physically and mentally. She was drugged and at various points during her captivity was convinced that the man, who was holding prisoner was her husband. Her first concern was Madison's safety. By getting Maddie out, she might have given up her only chance of rescue. He knew, after the fact, what she'd done. It was recorded and is in included in the dossier.

I feel badly for Darien on some level by turning over copies. Maybe, just maybe, it'll help the healing process if he knows what all was done in his name and by a man with his face. Precise editing explains a great deal about the media files we found. After all, Fenner's not dead despite the video of his horrific demise while my sister, Rhi, escaped with Maggie and the twins. His effigy with casket was dutifully preserved and placed in one of the vaults. However, in Mother's depleted state hearing his voice saying that he felt like he was being treated like the cattle coupled with a female voice talking of their bedsport could easily have sent Mother over the edge. As I said, she buries things and deeply.

The healing begins with the burial of my sister; it's been held off far too long. Did I mention her name was Cecilia" Chronologically speaking, she was about five years old. FIVE. Younger than Maggie. He succeeded in breaking the DNA code to physically recreate Mother with one exception, the color of her eyes. It was that trait hidden beneath his drugs and trickery that clued Bridget Dillon into the ruse. Having to view him killing her gave me a feeling helplessness. Knowing that my mother was forced to watch made it even worse.

They say when one door closes, another opens. The question is ....what will be behind that door"