"Is she?" General Easton asked. "I think I should talk to you first, Dar. It's a little sticky."

"All right," she responded. "Gerry, this doesn't have anything to do with a bunch of suits showing up at our Herndon office does it?"

Long pause. "Eh?" Gerry grunted. "Well, to be honest, it's hard to tell from here right now what has to do with anything, Dar. Do yourself a favor though, will you? Don't say no to anything right off. There's a bit of a headless viper lashing around and I don't' want you to get bit."

Uh oh. "Okay," Dar said. "I'll call you from Mexico City then. I have a commuter scheduled for the border."

"Right. Gotta go, Dar. Good to hear your voice too. Glad you were out of harm's way." The line went dead, leaving a faint echo in the car.

"Hm." Dar closed the phone. "Headless viper." She looked at her boss. "That doesn't sound any good."

"Sure doesn't," Alastair murmured. "Sure doesn't."

CYNTHIA STUART SAT quietly, sipping her morning tea and watching the sky outside turn from black to gray with the coming dawn. She'd woken early, as she always did, and treasured the peace of the early morning to think about the coming day and go over her busy schedule.

She opened her organizer and flipped to the last page she'd updated from the day before, going over her notes, rereading again the horrors she'd put down in brief entries.

Only by reading the words was she really able to absorb the fact that all the terrible things had, in fact, happened. Sitting here in this lovely hotel room, it cut through the surrealness. After a moment, she closed the book and got up, walking silently across the floor to the door across from the table.

She pushed it in and peered inside, her eyes adjusting to the dim light as she studied the large bed inside with its still asleep occupant.

Kerry was curled on her side, her head on one pillow and her arm wrapped around a second. Relaxed in slumber, she was far less threatening a presence, and seeing the familiar position reluctantly made her mother smile.

Her eldest. Cynthia sighed and closed the door retreating back to the table and settling down to resume her notes. She picked up a pen and found her place and scribed a careful addition as she shook her head over the subject. "Terrible."

The world was still gripped in its peculiar insanity, it seemed. She picked up her morning news brief, delivered quietly by her staff, and reread it. If she looked out the big windows at the edge of the hotel room, she knew she would see flashing lights and the oddness of military transports in the streets and, for a moment, she honestly regretted her decision to complete her husband's government term.

It would indeed have been better to be home. There was Angela and her children to get settled and many small things requiring her attention. Perhaps she could have also had another day of Kerry and Michael's presence to make it seem as though her family wasn't quite as fractured as, in truth, it was.

Hard on the furniture that it might have been. Cynthia glanced up and smiled, hearing the echoes of that laughter the day before, and Kerry's exasperated "Michael!" that had brought back so many more pleasant memories.

"Good morning."

Cynthia jumped a little, not expecting the sound. She looked up to find Kerry in the door to her bedroom, still dressed in just a T-shirt. "Good morning," she replied. "Did the room service wake you? I'm sorry if it did. He was trying to be very quiet."

"No." Kerry came over and sat down at the table. "I've been up. I didn't really sleep that well." She rested her forearms on the table and laced her fingers together. "Too many things on my mind, I think."

The older woman studied her daughter. The tanned, serious face under it's mop of shaggy blond hair was a little unfamiliar to her now. The planes of her face had gotten a little longer, the jawline a touch more rounded, and there was a definite wariness shadowing the light green eyes that hadn't been there before.

The T-shirt she wore pulled tight over her shoulders as she leaned against the table, showing the outline of muscles Cynthia didn't find appealing. She didn't really approve of women working so hard and gaining the attributes she more properly applied to men.

Though it really wasn't terribly unattractive. When her daughter was properly dressed it lent her body a pleasantly tapered shape despite her carrying more weight on her frame than ever before. It wasn't really fat, and it wasn't really the slimness she preferred. It just seemed odd to her.

Cynthia supposed it gained her nothing to mention it. Kerry was obviously content with the way she looked and perhaps her own view was a little biased as she'd heard from friends around town how everyone else seemed to think she looked quite good, really.

Ah well.

She glanced at the strong hands on the table, her eye catching a glint as the light reflected off a ring on Kerry's third finger. It was attractive and refined, and it fit her well. "That's a lovely ring," Cynthia said. "Is it new?"

Kerry glanced at her hand. "No," she said. "Dar gave it to me at our commitment ceremony," she explained. "We exchanged rings."

Cynthia pondered over that. Commitment ceremony? "Is that--" She paused, not wanting to upset her daughter with any assumptions over breakfast. "What exactly is that? What does it mean?"

Kerry tapped her thumbs together. "What does that mean?" She mused. "I'm not sure what it means to everyone else, but to Dar and I, it means we belong to each other." Her fingers flexed a little. "We're married," she clarified.

She glanced up to gauge her mother's response, seeing mostly a mildly encouraging thoughtfulness there. "As legally as we can be, of course, since our government seems to think gay marriage is as dangerous as an unstable nuclear stockpile." She added a wry smile. "Dar and I had to spend a long time with a lawyer to get the same legal protection a five minute blood test and signature get for everyone else who isn't gay."

Cynthia's face twitched.

There was a soft knock at the door, and Kerry got up. "Room service," she said, as she went to the door and opened it. "Hello."

"Ma'am." The room service waiter, a slim woman, entered. "Your breakfast."

"Thanks." Kerry indicated the table. She followed the server over to the table, and waited for her to set the tray down. The woman did, then she turned, with a leather billfold in her hand, which Kerry held her hand out for, then signed.

"Do you need anything else, ma'am?" the woman asked, as she handed the bill back.

"Not right now." Kerry smiled at her. "Thank you."

The woman smiled back. "My pleasure." She gave Kerry's mother a respectful nod and left, closing the door quietly behind her.

Kerry opened a packet of raw sugar and poured it into her cup, filling it with hot coffee before she added some cream and sat down to enjoy it. She sipped from the cup, aware of the faintly pained look on her mother's face. "You don't like that word, do you?"

Cynthia looked up, startled. "I beg your pardon?"

"Gay," Kerry said. "You don't like it."

Her mother frowned, stirring her tea as she added a bit more hot water to it. "It makes me uncomfortable," she admitted finally. "Yes."

Kerry uncovered one of the dishes on her tray and picked up a cheerful looking cherry and cheese Danish. "Me too."

Cynthia blinked, and her brows creased again.

"I don't think I should have to define myself by who I sleep with." Kerrry studied the Danish and selected a spot, biting into it and chewing. She swallowed, and wiped her lips with her napkin. "It's kind of stupid."

"Well." Her mother took a sip of her tea. "You know, I think I agree with you on that subject." She watched her daughter chew her breakfast. "Really, it shouldn't matter, should it?"

Kerry looked up at her, eyes glinting with wry bemusement.

Cynthia seemed to appreciate the irony. She remained silent, fiddling with the teaspoon in obvious discomfort.

"It shouldn't," her daughter finally said. "So what's going on this morning?" She shoved the conversation onto a different track. "Anything new?"

Her mother sighed. "I'm afraid they stopped a bomb, a truck bomb from crossing into New York last night."

Kerry sat up, her brows creasing. "Good lord," she said. "So they're still doing things?"

Cynthia shook her head. "Apparently so," she said. "I was waiting to hear further details. Perhaps--" She hesitated. "Perhaps your people have heard more?"

"Let me get my laptop." Kerry set her cup down and got up. "And Dar's flying. I'm going to be a nervous wreck all day." She disappeared into her room, leaving the living space in silence.

Cynthia folded her hands in her lap and bowed her head for a moment, her lips moving as she whispered a short prayer. Then she straightened back up as she heard Kerry coming back in the room, taking a deep breath as her daughter reappeared holding her computer in her hands.

It was exhausting, dealing with this child of hers. Though Kerry was certainly being civil, the hostility she felt just under the surface was obvious to Cynthia, and she wondered when, not if, that simmering anger would erupt again.

Very difficult. Hard to know where to start, really. She didn't want to be so much at odds with her eldest daughter, but everything she'd tried so far to smooth the waters between them had ended badly and she wasn't truly sure why.

She knew Kerry was angry about all that had happened before, but really now it was in the past. Couldn't be changed.