At last, the never ending day ends.  

I have Riley drive me home.  I can not trust myself behind the wheel.
We drive past houses decorated with lights and trimmed with greenery.
Christmas decorations in the squalor of the rebuilding seems obscene,
somehow. I just stare out the window and watch their colored
reflections through the raindrops on the window.  My mind is empty.
Too much has happened too fast.  

I don't notice when the car comes to a stop, but Riley's voice breaks
me out of my reverie.  "Agent Jones?  Ma'am?"  

"What?"  

"We're here."  

I look out of the car window and I see the familiar apartment
building. Instinctively, I look up at the window to see if Karen is
home yet.  It would be nice to come home to her...to have her make me
dinner and to curl up in her soft, warm arms.  It feels like weeks
since I've seen her. We are both so busy, these days.  I miss her.  

The windows are dark.  She is not home. 

I pull my jacket shut and open the door, "Thanks, Riley.  I'll see
you in a day or two."  

She smiles at me.  "Sleep well, ma'am." 

I climb out of the car and make my way up the stairs.  When I open the
mail box, it is so crammed that letters tumble out at me.  I bundle
them under my arm, vaguely wondering why Karen hasn't collected the
mail and I head upstairs.  In front of the door, I trip on the pile of
newspapers.  Why hasn't Karen....

And then I remember.  

I slide down the wall, letting the mail slip through my grasp.  Karen
is gone.  What we had...was all a lie.  I remember that, now.  I am so
tired, the tears come easily.  

"Ali?" 

There is a gentle hand on my shoulder and I look up, my sight blurry
with tears.  It is John, my neighbor.  I have been sitting in the hall
crying.

"Ali?  Are you okay?" 

I scrub my eyes and nod, unable to form words.  I am not okay, but
while John is a nice guy, there is nothing he can do. 

"I heard you crying out here...." He stoops down and starts to collect
my scattered mail.  "You've been out of town these last few days?"  

I manage to nod and mumble "Business."  

He shakes his head.  He doesn't for ask more.  He knows I won't say
anything else.  He holds out his hand.  "Lemme help you up." he
offers.  

I smile weakly and let him drag me up. "Thank you." I manage.  

He smiles and shrugs.  "No problem." he says.  "You look dead on your
feet."  

I nod.  "Its been a long couple of days." I say softly.  "When I got
out of the car, I had forgotten Karen..."  

"You were so tired you were expecting she'd be here."  

"Yeah." 

I try and remember what lies I told him, but I am too tired to sort it
out.  I fumble with my keys and eventually get the door unlocked.
John holds out the mail. "Thanks." I say to him as I take it.  

"No problem."  he says.  "And...if you need anything...just knock,
okay?"  

I nod to him.  "Thank you." I whisper.  I turn and go into my home,
into the cold, dark, empty apartment that I used to share with Karen.

****

An hour later, I sit, sprawled on the couch, watching the flickering
candlelight through the amber glass of brandy in my hand, listening to
the rain beating on the window and the melancholy chords of Mozart's
Requiem.  

	Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine:
	et lux perpetua luceat eis.

Eternal rest, give unto them, O lord, and let light perpetual shine
upon them. 

I am wearing one of her nightshirts.  A comfy flannel that falls
loosely to my ankles and wrists.  It still smells like her.  My mind
wanders.  I remember her, sitting here with me, as we talked.  Talked
and talked for hours.  Mozart was always her passion.  She'd played
violin, her parents made her learn, before she wound up at Curie.  And
then it became her escape.

She hated this recording.  The interpretation was weak, she would
say.  It lacked passion.  I never could tell the difference.  Just as
I could never tell the difference between the woman I loved and the
woman who was real.  

	Kyrie eleison: 
	Christe eleison:
	Kyrie eleison.

Lord have mercy on us. Christ have mercy on us.  Lord have mercy on
us. 

I see her standing across the room, reaching for a book.  She is so
beautiful in the candlelight.  Her golden hair shimmers like a halo
around her head, and she turns and smiles at me over her shoulder.

"I love you, Karen."  I say it out loud, but my voice is lost in the
music.  She turns back to the book and fades away.  

I loved you.  Why?  Why did you do it?  You knew it was wrong.  You
knew. And you hid it from me.  I could have gotten you help.

If I hadn't been so blind, if I hadn't let my emotions distract me
from the truth, we could have stopped you.  We could have stopped the
project before it got out of hand.  

We could have stopped the project before the Deviants decided to fix
it for us.

	Dies irae, dies illa
        Solvet saeclum in favilla

The day of wrath, that dreadful day. Shall all the world in ashes lay.

This could have been prevented.  At least three times, and probably
countless more, it could have been prevented. Each time, there was a
miscalculation, a misjudgment.  A person who let emotions blind them
from the truth.

Around me, the candlelight turns into towers of flame. I see the city
in fire, again.  I remember the screams of children that had flooded
my mind.  The cries of pain that I had been unable to block out.  The
biofeedbacks had failed, it was like I was back in my Bellevue days.
Karen had held me that night, as I cried.  

Night of wrath...and the next morning, as Smith and I flew over the
city, all the world in ashes lay

	Quando judex est venturus

Then comes that judge whose searching light....

Clarity comes from strange places.  Through the flames I see their
faces - haggard and desperate.  The warrior Tserovich, the healer
Corcoran, the child Burke and the Seer Kelly.  We shared a common
thread.  Like them, they too could have prevented the day of ashes had
they not been blinded by emotion.

Monsters, I wanted to see them as.  Malicious.  Irresponsible.  It
would have been easy to classify them as deviants and never look
further than that.  But my training wouldn't let me.  I had to study
them, objectively.  Or at least try. 

I think my objectivity is shot.  I can only hope that when I destroyed
their family over the last few days, I did the right thing.  I can
only hope that it wasn't revenge that was driving me, for they saw
what I was blinded to.  They saw what Karen had become.  

I watch her now, across the room.  I see her figure turn again, but
her face is malformed with fangs, her hands stretch out into claws.
I turn away, unable to watch.  How can I never have seen this in her?
How did I miss it?  Karen, my beautiful love.  Karen...why did you
betray the vows? 

Why did you betray me?

I loved you, Karen.  I would have died for you.  

	Lacrymosa dies illa,
	Qua resurget ex favilla

Ah! that day of tears and mourning! From the dust of earth returning.

Kelly, the Seer, the Judge.  Did I destroy you, because you made me
see the truth of her?  Did I destroy your family out of spite?  Or is
this path truly the best?

I see them - the four of them together in that house of theirs.  Bound
together by suffering, by shared horrors and nightmares.  Mourn the
dead but save the living became their cry.  When the Union's own
doctors could not be bothered to get out of their labs, they were in
the trenches, covered in the blood of the living and the dead, earning
their redemption.

One by one, their ravaged faces appears to me, glittering in the
brandy.  

Burke.  Burko.  What has become of you?  What strange creature are
you, to begin with?  A child that is not a child.  A powerful deviant,
in every sense of the word.  What forces have stolen you from our
protection?  What havoc will you yet cause?  Are you safe, somewhere,
out of harm's way?  Or have you fallen into the grasp of the ones who
follow no code, but their own pride?  Dangerous child, dangerous man.
I can only hope you are safe, wherever you are.  

Tserovich and Corcoran - Niccolo and Leigh.  You came to me for help
this morning, to ask my aid in avenging Ryan. I said I would help, of
course.  Lies.  It has always been lies and manipulations.  You place
your trust in me and all I offer you is falsehoods in return.  

Just as Karen did to me.  

Is anything in this world based in truth?  Or is it all just one lie
embedded in another.  Nic and Leigh do good. They care for people and
would not see the innocents suffer.  But who is innocent, I ask you?

Ryan would know.  

Kelly.  Ryan.  Traitor to his family, seduced into the Order.  By me.
Seer.  Judge. Visionary. Ally.  A true enigma to me.  I hope you find
in the Order what you are looking for.  I hope you don't come to
regret and hate your decision some time down the road. 

In time, maybe we will learn to call each other friend.
In time, maybe we can build a relationship based on truth.  

We have both been scorched by lies.  
We have both been burned by those we trusted.  
We have both lost our families in the struggle to protect humanity.  

	Kyrie eleison. 

Lord have mercy on our souls.  

****

I wake to sunlight streaming in the window, into my eyes.  The rain of
last night is gone and it is a beautiful blue day.  I am curled on the
couch and as I stiffly uncurl, I resolve to sleep in the bed, tonight.
It has been too long since I have slept in a bed.  

As I sit up, I see a small pile of broken glass on the floor.  The
brandy sniffer must have slipped from my hands in the night.  The
glass was the last of a set Karen and I had bought when we first moved
in together.  I look at it for a moment and then I raise the sleeve of
her nightshirt to my nose.  Her smell is gone. It just smells of me,
now.  

Like Ryan, like Burko, like Nic and Leigh, my ties to the past are
broken.  It is a new day and it is time to look forward rather than
back. It is time to learn from the mistakes of the past but not dwell
on them.  There is work to do.  Here.  Now.  Smith is right - the role
of a field agent is one of the most important in the Union.  We are
the ones who stand between humanity and the nightmares.  

I stand for a moment and look out at the sun, at the bright day
dawning over the city.  And then I turn and get the dust pan to clean
up the broken glass.  

It is time for me to get to work.