Boon Of My Existence

  She was surprised to find that the front door of the bar was nothing but a pair of old, swinging saloon doors.  But then again, the place was in the middle of a Nevada desert and at least 10 miles away from any other sign of human existence.  Add to that the fact that the bar never technically closed, and then it didn't seem all that necessary for it to have a real door.

  The place was a... well, perhaps 'dive' was being too generous.  Large shack might be a better description.  Still, apparently some people liked the place.  It was primarily a biker bar, though not strictly by intention.  It's just that bikers were the only people who had the slightest inclination to bother with it, and even then, it was only a select type of biker.

  At least that was her theory.  She did not know for sure, since she'd never been in this area, and generally never goes anyplace beyond 20 miles of a five-star hotel.

  Someone who didn't know better would think she was out of her element.  She was a creature of exceptional beauty.  About 5' 7", with lean but noticed muscle tone, straight, glossy, black hair to the middle of her back, and absolutely flawless skin.

  It was a common experience for her to walk into any room and be met by almost every eye, so it felt particularly odd to her when she entered the bar and no one seemed to notice her at all.  Especially given that she wore her calf-high leather boots, very short leather skirt, and her high-cut leather halter top: all black.

  It was a rare experience for her to not be immediately noticed, but it did not really bother her, particularly since she could see the reason straight across the room.  All eyes were on a denim-clad man hassling another man at the bar.

  "What makes you think you can stare at my old lady," he said, apparently half drunk and referring to the blonde, in a tied white tank and cut-off jean shorts, behind him.

  The man he was talking to was sitting, trying to ignore him.  He's the one she was here for.  She'd never seen him in jeans and leather before, and he'd cut his hair, but she could tell it was him.  Their kind could always tell.

  As she made her way across the room, she heard soft mumbles as the people she passed took note of her.  It brought a smile to her face.

  The drunken biker... the one in question, that is, grabbed the sitting man by the shoulder of his jacket and shook him a little as he shouted, "Hey.  I'm talking to you, asshole."

  It really was more than pathetic, the thought to herself as she approached them both.  In a continuous flow of movement, she pushed the drunk aside, sending him crashing to the floor, and then turned the sitting man to face her.

  To her, his name was Stryker.  She grabbed the back of his head with one hand and slid one of his legs between hers as she moved closer.  He recognized her instantly, and was surprised, not only by her presence, but also by the deep kiss with which she practically attacked him.  Kira slid her free hand up his other thigh to his crotch.  She stroked until she felt the hard bulge rise, then she cupped it and squeezed hard.

  She released the grip, but her hand remained.  She found the horizontal seam of the crotch of his jeans, dug her fingernails into the fabric, and then pulled up with the incredible strength that only their kind possess.

  The entire front of his jeans was instantly turned into a large flap moved to free his penis from its confines.  She was pleased that he had worn no underwear, because it would have just taken up more time, which is why she had worn none, as well.

  She held his length as she moved her leg over his other, sliding him into her as she sat completely on his lap.  She held the back of his head with both hands, and he moved his hands across her back and waist.  With his help, she moved her hips back and forth as they kissed.

  All eyes were definitely on her, now.  The drunk guy had finally managed to stand up again, and was now at their side, shouting.

  "Hey.  Who the hell do you think you are?  I'm talking to you.  Hey."

  Did he not realize what was happening, or what, Kira wondered.  Either way, the idiot was getting on her nerves.  She let go of the back of Stryker's head with one hand, and then placed it around the drunk's neck.  He stopped talking when she squeezed, though he was still making some noises.  That would stop soon enough, though.

  Stryker knew he should probably intervene at this point.  He slid his fingers along her arm and stopped at her wrist where he wrapped them around and squeezed hard.  She was not letting go, so he took more of his attention off of helping her thrust and focused on increasing his grip on her wrist.

  He finally succeeded in forcing her to release her grasp, and the drunken man fell to the floor, unconscious, but still alive.  Stryker knew she never killed humans, but she liked to taunt him.  When she's around him, and the situation arises where some human is being especially annoying, she always does genuinely try to kill them, but she knows that Stryker will always stop her.

  It's not something about her that he particularly enjoys, but he does understand it about her, and to be honest, in this particular instance, it did excite him a little more.

  He grabbed her hips with both hands and stood up.  Almost stumbling, he stepped over the body of the drunk and blindly made his way to a door that was behind him.  He knew the door was closed, and he had intended to open it, but he misjudged the distance, and they hit it with an unexpected force- their momentum driving him into her hard and fast.

  He knew by the sound she made that she enjoyed the sensation, as well did he.  He pressed her back firmly to the door, gripped her hips, and repeatedly drove into her.

  The pleasure increased enough to force her to break the kiss and gasp for air.  She put her head to the door, and her hands to the doorsill, at shoulder level, and pushed hard to help him support her.  She turned her head slowly from side to side, starting to make quiet whines in time with his increasing thrusts.

  The bartender had thought he'd seen a lot, but even he stopped what he was doing to watch the two of them.  They were actually beginning to shake the old building.  Each impact shook the wall, and he could see small amounts of dust falling down from where it connected to the ceiling.

  The sound of breaking glass from a fallen picture startled the patrons, and Stryker decided it would be best to move this on into the room before there was more damage.  He found the doorknob, turned it, and they almost fell in, as Kira barely caught hold of him in time.  He kicked the door closed behind him, and they both fell onto a bed that was in the room.

  In the bar, the awe-struck audience just listened to the rhythmic screek of old bed springs, the curiously only occasional bang of metal bed posts against a wall, and the new cries of pleasure from the mysterious female, the entire duration of all of which was spotted with the sound of different objects falling to the floor at irregular intervals.

  After about twenty minutes, the noise seemed to die down, and when all seemed quiet, the customers and bartender turned into one big discussion group.

  Inside the room, Stryker was lying on his stomach on the old bed, Kira was laying face down across his bare back, and both of them panted heavily for some minutes without otherwise moving.

  "The sad thing is," she finally said, "that you're the only one who can do me right."

  "My pleasure," he replied.

  "Yeah," she said through a little laugh as she lightly stroked his side, tickling him.  She smiled at the muscles twitching beneath his flesh.  "So, you actually own this pathetic excuse for a drinking establishment?"

  "Uh huh."

  "The depth of your irony never ceases to amaze me.  You're an adamant non drinker whose never so much as tasted alcohol in all your years, yet you own a bar that, knowing you, probably serves a few drinks that aren't even legal in the states."

  "You know me pretty good, don't you," he asked with a hint of sarcasm.

  "I still don't know how old you are," she said, pointedly.  "I know that Venezuela was 1867."

  He knew she was referring to when they first met.  "You never really ever gave the subject a chance to come up.  When you weren't trying to kill me or fuck me, then..." the sentence broke with nowhere to go.  "Well, that's pretty much all there was."

  "I'm asking now."

  "Who are you, and where's the real Kira," he spoke half into his pillow.

  "So I'm in a mellow mood.  I'm still reveling in that wall treatment.  For a brief moment, I'm reconsidering killing you."

  "I guess I shouldn't complain, huh?"

  "Right," she replied, scraping her short nails roughly down his side, hurting him only a little.

  He moaned as he rolled onto his side.  She rose off of him so he could sit up.  "I have an appointment," he said as he stood and took a couple of steps to the dresser.  He pulled open the second drawer to retrieve an intact pair of blue jeans.

  "Still in the charity game, huh," she asked.

  "Yeah."  He took out a pair of underwear as well.  He always wore underwear when he worked.

  "How long you gonna keep me waiting this time?"

  "Well," he said in a brighter tone, "it should take only about half an hour, but if you want to help, it might go faster."  Before she spoke, he added, "The drive out there will take an hour, though."

  She thought a moment as she watched him get dressed, and then responded.  "Okay.  I've never seen you work.  It might be interesting."

  "Actually," he said again, "this one should be right up your alley."  He turned and walked back to her and grabbed one of her bare breasts in one hand.

  "Do tell."  She smiled raising her face to meet his lips in a kiss.

  He broke from her.  "When we get there," he said reaching down to pick her leather top up off the floor for her.  He handed it to her, she took it, and he looked at his clock on the bedside table.  It read 4:56 AM.  "We have to leave in just a few minutes."

  "This is okay to wear," she asked, referring to her small leather outfit.

  He sat on the bed and began putting his socks and boots back on.  "There will be clothes waiting for us."

  "Sounds exciting already," she said, putting her top back on.  It was all she had taken off, so she was ready to go, instantly, but then she thought and said, "If we're taking your bike, then I'll need a jacket."

  He stood and grabbed his older leather jacket off the coat rack in the corner.  He handed it to her and said, "this should suffice."

  She took the jacket and held it up, looking it over.  It was worn but still intact.  "Grow out of it?"

  "Not physically," he replied, walking around the bed to the other side of the room to take a t-shirt out of the closet.

  She slipped her arms into the slightly oversized coat, then held one side up to her nose and inhaled the old scent of him while he wasn't looking.  She didn't want him to think she was going soft on him.

  He picked his jacket up off the floor at the foot of the bed, put it on, and she crawled off the bed as he opened the door.

  He let her walk out first, and all eyes were on them, again.  The drunken guy was sitting in a chair holding a cold beer bottle to the back of his head.  When he looked up to see them walking out, he stood and rushed over.

  "I've had it with your ass," the drunk shouted.  He was going to say more, but Stryker put his hand flat to the guy's chest and shoved hard.  The guy rose off the floor about six inches and flew backwards, arching through the air.  About eight feet later, he crashed down onto a table then slid off the other side and onto the floor.

  "I'm going to work, Brody," Stryker said to the bartender.

  Brody didn't say anything.  He didn't even nod, not that Stryker would have seen it, since he was already going towards the door.

  They approached the last table and the man sitting there looked at Stryker saying, "Are we still on next week, Mike?"

  "Sure thing," Stryker replied in passing.

  "Is that you're name, then," Kira asked as they pushed the doors open to leave the bar.  "Mike?"

  "Yep," he said, swinging his leg over the motorcycle that stood just outside the entrance.  He kicked up the stand.

  "I always had a feeling it wasn't really Stryker."  She straddled the seat behind him and rested her hands on his hips.  "So, why the alias?"

  He turned the key that was already in place and thumbed some switches, saying, "Stryker was the nickname of a former friend of mine, back then.  He decided to borrow a large amount of money in my name, and then decided not to ever pay it back, and then he skipped town.  So, basically, I decided to adopt his name until I had left Venezuela."  He began to roll the bike backward, turning the handlebars to stop parallel with the building.

  "That's a mildly interesting tale, if it's true.  You sure you didn't just have bad taste in names you chose for yourself.  Nicknames aren't uncommon for our kind, you know, and I've heard some stupid ones."

  He put his foot on the starter and paused, looking half way back to her.  "You didn't seem to have any problems with it."

  "No," she said.  "I suppose not.  There was something about it I liked, though I couldn't quite figure out what, at the time."

  "What was that?"

  She leaned closer, put the side of her lips to the shell of his ear and whispered, "Just think about it a while," then she sat back again.

  He looked forward, slightly puzzled, and started the motorcycle, not giving the matter too much thought.  As he turned the grip to accelerate, the bike took off, and he felt her hands move from his hips to the front of his stomach.  After about ten minutes into the ride, she was pressed close to his back and occasionally rested her head on the back of his shoulder.

  It was odd to him that he should feel so good with her.  Odd enough would be that he felt this good with anyone, but it was virtually incomprehensible that he should feel like this with one of his own kind.

  Though she didn't make frequent appearances, she always showed up unexpectedly, completely surprising him, and the mixed feelings that rushed through him in those first instances were of such an intensity, it was almost like a drug high that increased with every visit.

  He was always filled with a combination of fear, shock, apprehension, and worry.  But also there was joy, relief, excitement, and lust like he'd never experienced.  He wanted to spend all his time with her, but there was always that one problem of her trying to kill him.  Fortunately she had an exceptional sense of honor, when it came to him, and that, as well as what he felt was unbelievably good luck, has kept him alive to blindly pursue something resembling a resolution that didn't involve one of them dying.

  He was totally lost for what to do, of course.  They never seemed to spend more than a couple of days together, and there was still so much about her that he didn't know.  He was not even sure if it was wise to let her know how he truly felt.

  It was still dark when they arrived at a beat up travel trailer somewhere in the middle of another nowhere in Nevada, and parked the bike in the back between the trailer and a rather nice car.  An unusually nice car, she thought, for someone living here.

  They both walked around to the door of the trailer, and Stryker knocked followed by two more rapid knocks.  She stood behind him, and a little to the side, so he did not see the slight curl of her lip.  She thought the use of a secret knock was somewhat silly.  Silly, but also a little cute... and a little fun.

  It seemed like there were no lights on inside, but someone immediately separated the blinds and peeked through.  The blinds were released, and then the door opened.  Kira could see some candle light inside the trailer as a woman poked her head out and briefly looked around.

  "Oh, thank you for coming, Mr. Goodman," the woman's tone was wary but relieved.  "Come in."

  Mr. Goodman is it, Kira thought to herself.  She followed him inside and looked around the place.  The light was dim, but she could easily see that this was obviously not anyone's permanent residence.  It looked more like a storage shed with boxes and a variety of clutter shoved to three sides, and she smelled old dust in the stale air along with the invisible smoke from the candle's flame.

  "This is Kira," Stryker said in a manner that suggested she had belonged there from the beginning of whatever he had going on.

  "Hi," the blonde woman said politely, though looking curiously at Kira's revealing attire.  She then extended her hand to Kira.  "Dr. Mathis.  Helen."  Kira nodded and shook her hand, and then Dr. Mathis released and waved back towards a man sitting in a small chair on the other side of the makeshift table supporting the candle.  "This is my husband, James."

  The man stood and extended his hand as well.  Kira shook it and they both quietly said hi to each other.

  "Mr. Goodman," Dr. Mathis said, "You said that this close to dawn, we shouldn't go outside."  She paused briefly.  "I really have to use the bathroom."

  "Oh.  Absolutely," he said, almost apologetically, "Kira will stay with you."  He saw Kira raise her eyebrows, obviously not sure what was going on, but also in acceptance of her appointed task.

  "Thank you," Dr. Mathis said, and then squeezed passed them to the door.

  Kira followed her outside then around to the back of the trailer, then about another fifteen feet to a medium sized boulder where the doctor proceeded to unfasten her pants, squat down, and relieve herself.  It was dark, but it appeared to Kira that the boulder had been chiseled into a laying U shape.  Presumably, it sat around a hole dug into the ground.

  "Sorry about this," she said with a faint, uncomfortable laugh.

  "Hey, don't worry about it," Kira reassured her.  "So, what exactly is going on, here," she said, after a time.

  "You don't know?"  The doctor looked up at Kira, confused.  "Mr. Goodman didn't tell you?  I thought you were working with him."

  "I was a bit of a last minute pick-up."  She decided she'd probably better look a little more like she's supposed to be there.  She stared out into the dark and began scanning the surroundings.

  "Well, I'm a plastic surgeon.  I work in Carson City and a month ago I did some reconstructive surgery for a man.  It turns out that this man was a major loan shark in Vegas, and the police started catching on to him a little too much.  I didn't know any of this.  All I was doing was giving someone a new face.  Nothing unusual."

  The doctor paused, and Kira heard a slight grunting sound, then the doctor continued her tale.

  "Apparently, the police were not the only people he had trouble with.  A rival loan shark sent someone to sabotage the surgery.  I was in the middle of the procedure, when one of the nurses assisting me grabbed a scalpel and sliced it deep into Mr. Tula's opened face a few times, then took off running."

  "Let me guess," Kira interrupted.  "Serious nerve damage and a permanently messed up face later, the loan shark wants revenge."

  "Basically."

  They were quiet a moment, then Kira spoke.  "So, how did..." in a very brief pause, she thought better of using the name Stryker, but had not heard the woman or her husband call him by a first name.  It was possible that he was not Mike to them either, but it was the only other name she had to work with, apart from Mr. Goodman, and she was not quite ready to say that one out loud.  Too weird for her.  "...Mike get involved in all of this?"

  "About a week after the surgery, one of Mr. Tula's people attacked me, and tried to kill me, in my home while I was there alone.  I managed to get away, and I went to James' office.  We called the police, and they did what they could, but a few days later, we were attacked again.  We called the police to tell them, but then we headed out of town, not telling anyone where we were going."

  Dr. Mathis used some of a roll of toilet paper, that was left by the rock, and cleaned herself, and then she stood, pulled up her pants, and fastened them as she continued to speak.  "This trailer used to belong to James' uncle, but he died, and all his stuff was just packed in it and left.  It's in the middle of nowhere and far from Carson City and Vegas, so we decided to hide out here for a while."

  They started back towards the trailer.  "It had been a long time since James had been out here, so we got a little lost and came across Mr. Goodman's bar.  We were a little scared to go in, but we were also very hungry, and we knew there was not going to be any food waiting at the trailer, so we went in to see if we could get something to eat."

  Kira stopped her from speaking and walking.  "Wait.  That rat trap actually serves food?"

  "Yeah," the doctor replied, confused by the sudden change of topic.

  "Is it any good?"

  Having mentally caught up, and understanding Kira's point of view, Dr. Mathis smiled, "It's a lot better than you would expect."

  Kira thought a moment, and then came to a conclusion.  "I guess it would be.  He does own the place after all.  And he lives there.  One would presume he would eat there, as well."  After a short afterthought, she shook her head and returned to the original topic.  "So you went in to eat and..." leaving it open for the doctor to complete.

  "Mr. Goodman recognized my picture from a newspaper article about the attack during the surgery."

  "He reads the newspaper," Kira asked loud enough for the doctor to hear, but quietly enough to indicate that she was talking to herself.

  "Basically, he approached us about it and convinced us to let him help."  They started walking, again.  "It was a good thing, too.  After a couple of days, he found out that Mr. Tula had somehow found out where we were staying, and that he was planning another attack for this morning, shortly after dawn."

  "Then today should prove to be exciting," Kira said with light intentions, but the doctor did not find it quite as amusing.

  They both entered the trailer quietly to find Stryker and James had exchanged clothes, and Stryker was finishing what seemed to be a conversation one or both of the women were not intended to hear.  "I know it'll seem strange, but please trust me," he had said to James.  Stryker turned quickly to look at Dr. Mathis and Kira and said, in an almost clumsy attempt to explain, "Some last minute planning."  He looked at the doctor and spoke directly to her, "He'll fill you in later."

  His little cover up was good enough to fool the doctor, but Kira had been around long enough to know better.  There was something he did not want her to know.  She initially wanted to say something about it, to tactfully probe further, because she generally does not like information being kept from her when it comes to battle, but she thought better of it.  Any signs of dissension would not help these peoples' peace of mind, and to be honest, she was actually looking forward to the surprise, a little bit.  She trusted Stryker, after all.

  "James, you grab that box and help me set up outside," Stryker spoke now as a confident leader.  "Doctor," he said then paused, "I'm afraid I will have to ask you to switch clothes with Kira."

  Dr. Mathis looked at Kira's outfit again, and seemed a little apprehensive, but said, "Okay."  Kira could understand the doctor´s feelings.  One would expect a late thirties, loafer wearing, plastic surgeon to be a bit hesitant to slip into the almost minimum amount of non-swimwear clothing that would be considered legal to wear in public in this country, and it be black leather to boot.  But to be fair, Kira was not exactly eager to don this woman's tan slacks and pale yellow blouse.  On the up side, at least they were close to the same size.

  Stryker went out first, and then closed the door once James was out.  "So, how do you know Mr. Goodman," Dr. Mathis asked to draw some attention from the fact that they were two strangers stripping in an old storage trailer to exchange outfits.

  Naturally, Kira had to answer the question carefully.  "We met in Venezuela, some years ago, at a cafe.  We spent a couple days together, then we both left the country in different directions," she said while taking off the jacket and sat down to start on her boots.

  Her shoes already off, the doctor asked, "Why?" as she unbuttoned the last button of her blouse and stopped.

  "It's a long, complicated story, actually."  Kira unzipped her second boot and pulled it off her otherwise bare foot.  "We ran across each other once in a while in later years, mainly here in the states."  She unzipped the front of her leather top.

  "I guess both of you traveled quite a bit," the doctor slipped her blouse off her shoulders as Kira did the same with her top.  "Do you need my bra," the doctor asked as a side note.

  "Yeah, probably better."

  Dr. Mathis reached behind her to unhook her bra and continued the original topic with the question, "Yet the both of you just happened to come across each other so many times?"

  They exchanged tops and began to put the other's on.  "Well," Kira began to confess, "the second meeting was by chance, but I do admit that with the others, I did seek him out."

  "I take it you found him to be something special."

  "Yeah, you could say that," Kira agreed.  "I knew there was something about him the first time we met, but it was that second chance meeting that gave me the impression that he was going to be someone significant to me.  There was something I had to find out, but certain circumstances kept getting in the way."  She finished buttoning the blouse.

  "Circumstances?"  The doctor had started unfastening her pants.

  "We each had different things going on in our lives."  Kira unzipped the generally rectangular piece of material that passed for a skirt, but she left it just hanging open at the side, waiting for the doctor to finish taking her pants off.  Kira had no problem with showing all of her nude body, but she was not sure exactly how the doctor felt about seeing it, so she decided to extend her the courtesy.

  "Like what?"  The doctor stepped out of her pants.

  There's another one to be careful with, Kira thought.  She took the pants and covered her crotch as she raised her buttocks off the chair to slip the leather out from under her.  She used that time to think of an appropriate, yet still honest, response.  "Well, he has been helping people out for a while, actually, so there was that."  And she was busy seeking out others of their kind to challenge.

  "You mean he helps a lot of people, just out of the blue?"  She took the skirt.

  "Yes, he does."  She stared towards the far clutter-lined wall, in contemplation of her own words as she spoke them.  "Little stuff and big stuff like this."

  "Wow," the doctor said, struggling with feeding one half of the zipper into the other.  "Then he's definitely something special."

  Kira bent down and held the pants open, ready to put her foot in.  "Yeah," she said quietly, almost to herself.  She slipped her right foot in, "Yeah, he is."

  As they both finished dressing, they said nothing, and Kira had found herself in a genuinely new situation.  For the first time in a long time, she felt uncertainty.  When she was a child, she knew she was different from other people, though she had not yet known about her kind.  She could not identify the source, but she just felt apart from other people.  She was not without some friends, and she was happy, but thoughts of emotional relationships never really crossed her mind.

  When she did find out a little more about what she was and the rest of her kind, she had made the challenges her main objective in life.  They were tangible, definable, and under her control.  Sometimes she even indulged in sex when she found a guy who could handle her, which was not often, and it certainly never occurred to her to fuck one of her own.  They're not there for fucking.  They're there for killing.

  Then she came across Stryker.  He was, at first, just another challenge to her, but he was not as responsive as others of their kind.  He didn't seem to have the drive, but still, she saw that he was not without the strength.

  He knew what she was from the start.  They always know.  But he didn't seem to care.  He didn't really care, but at the same time, neither did he deny what he was, by any means.  This was strange to her, and she was curious.

  For the first time in her life, she sat down with one of her own kind and actually had a conversation.  It was, however, little more than a novel experience, since she did still have every intention of destroying him.  Strangely enough, though, when they were in the street and about to begin, she found herself holding back.  Not holding back her skill or her strength, but holding back her strategy.

  She was never a back-stabber, but she had always enjoyed a dirty trick or two.  Sometimes, with some challenges, she took a little pleasure in literally kicking them while they were down.  With Stryker, though, she felt respect for him.  He never tried to make any power plays.  No posturing.  No big talk about what he was going to do to her.  He just said, okay, and faced her with quiet confidence.

  She admired him, and it moved her that there was someone like that in the world.  But still, he was one of their kind.  In order to give her two desires a fair chance, she decided to fight him with as much honor as she could.

  In retrospect, she realized that she was subconsciously giving him a way out.  She would have never had allowed herself to be defeated, not that she'd ever thought he could defeat her, but at the same time, part of her did not want him to be gone from the world.

  During the course of their first battle, he did not pull the punches, but he never kicked her while she was down, figuratively or literally.  She did the same for him.

  Their first battle ended with a barn collapsing on him, breaking his arm and pinning him to the ground.  She could have easily killed him, and in the case of anyone else, she may have done so, especially if they were pissing her off, but she did not.  She pulled him out of the rubble, set his arm, then left town.  It would be about a week before he was good as new, and she didn't want to wait around.

  "What about you," Kira finally said, once they were finished.  "How did you and your husband meet?"

  The doctor sat in one of the other chairs and smiled as she spoke.  "James works for an insurance company, and we met because a mutual client was trying to pull a scam.  He had intended to play us against each other, but he didn't count on us being attracted to each other.  One day we met for dinner to go over some information, and we wound up discovering the guy's con.  It was the end of his plan, and the beginning of our life together."

  "That's nice," Kira smiled.  "I hear stories like that, but it's hard to imagine one for myself."

  "Why is that," the doctor asked, looking across the small makeshift table to see Kira's eyes.

  Kira looked down.  "People like, uh, Mike and I....  Stuff like that just doesn't happen for us."

  The doctor furrowed her eyebrows.  "What do you mean people like you?  What makes you so different."

  Kira felt on the spot again.  She could not answer right away.  For the first time since her childhood, she felt somewhat vulnerable.  "We.  We have different drives than normal people, and relationships just aren't a part of them.  I...."

  "Kira."  The doctor interrupted with her voice lower and more intent.  Kira looked up to meet her eyes.  "No matter what urges you may feel, no one controls your life but you."  Kira was silent during the brief pause, thinking about the doctor's profound words.  "Do you love him?"

  It was not a word Kira ever really had in her vocabulary.  Love had always been irrelevant.  Love was for normal humans who lived safe lives with partners... in houses or whatever.  Also, Kira knew she was good, but she was not foolish enough to not accept the possibility that her next challenge could be her last.

  The door opening startled her.  Kira and the doctor's eyes shot towards James entering the trailer.  Stryker stuck his head in and spoke.  "One of Tula's men should be arriving soon."  He looked at Kira.  "We need to get ready."  She stood up and started to the door, and Stryker extended his hand, holding a blonde wig.  "Put this on."

  He must be in work mode, she thought to herself, because she'd never heard him be so commanding.  She didn't like being told what to do, but she let it slide.  He was trying to save these people's lives, and she knew that, to him, it was serious business.  She also knew a thing or two about war, so she stowed her pride.  It was his show, after all, and she didn't know all the details.

  She adopted her professional attitude and quietly took the wig before stepping out and down from the doorway.  She wound her hair up and put on the wig as he spoke to the two inside.

  "Okay, you two stay inside until I personally come tell you it's okay to come out.  Don't even look through the blinds."  He paused.  "No matter what you hear."  He looked at the both once more to let them know he was serious, and then he shut the door firmly.

  She followed him to a large rock a few paces from the door.  They both sat and were quiet.  She watched him long enough to figure out that, for now, he was watching and listening.  She followed his lead and looked out towards the unseen horizon, scanned the darkness, and listened for any sounds of a vehicle.

  A couple of minutes passed, then she heard the faint sound of tires on the hard and rocky earth.  "I hear them," she said.

  "Yeah, me too.  Look over there."  He pointed off to the side of them.

  She saw a pair of headlights, but they were not normal.  The lights had been modified to emit tight beams to an area on the ground just in front of the vehicle.  She realized that the driver could not very well drive up with the lights shining bright, but at the same time, some light would be needed to safely navigate the desert.  The car was moving slowly, probably because of the limited range the driver could see in front of the car.  If the car were heading for a boulder or tree, then the driver would need time to stop or turn away.

  Stryker put the back of his finger of one hand to the side of her arm.  "Let's move to the end of the trailer."  They both got up and walked quickly.

  They looked around the corner to see the lights drawing closer.  "Okay," he said, "When the guy gets out, we move around to the back of the trailer, but make sure he hears us."

  She said nothing, and knew she did not need to.  In moments, the vehicle's lights went out, and then it pulled to a stop about one hundred feet from the trailer, and the engine went quiet.  Both doors opened as quietly as could be, and two men stepped out.  They began walking towards the trailer, leaving their doors open, and they both pulled guns from their coats.

  Stryker heard the clicks as the two men readied their weapons, then he whispered to Kira, "Let's go."

  They began scrambling around the corner of the trailer, and Kira faked a foot slip to make sure the men heard them.  Stryker ran towards the other end of the trailer and ducked behind the far end of the useless septic tank, which sat in front of the car, and Kira followed.  The two men sprinted around the corner then slowed to a walking pace as they scanned the area.  They held their guns out as they cautiously checked all sides of the car.

  "When they both get passed the other end of the tank," Stryker said almost too quietly into Kira's ear, "Go around it and catch the last guy from behind right after the first one finds me."

  She waited until the last guy passed the other end of the long septic tank, then she began to move, still crouched, with a practiced stealth.  She was glad she had switched shoes with the doctor, because the hard soles of her boots would have made it very difficult to remain unnoticed.  She rounded the other end of the tank and stood up as she crept closer to the second man's back.

  "I see you.  Stand up," the first guy commanded, pointing his gun right at Stryker.  Kira immediately punched the second guy in the base of the spine.  He let out a cry as he fell to his knees, which prompted the first man to turn to see what was happening.  As soon as he did, Stryker stood up behind him, grabbed his wrist with one hand, and sent his other elbow into the side of the man's face.

  Kira struck her man across the back of the head to knock him out, so that both men were now unconscious.  Stryker grabbed his man by the collar of his suit jacket and began to drag him towards the desert to the side of the trailer.  "Bring him this way," he said to Kira.

  Kira drug her man the same way, following Stryker.  He stopped about fifty feet out, dropped his guy, then Kira saw an electric lantern flicker on.  She pulled her man up and laid him along side Stryker's, then took a look at the set up.

  Their were eight metal spikes driven into the dirt, four above and four below the men's bodies.  To each spike was attached a shackle by way of a short chain.  Stryker immediately began cuffing his man's hands and feet.  Kira raised an eyebrow and began cuffing her man.  She could not help but smile.

  "We should have went out on a date a long time ago.  You definitely know how to show a girl a good time."

  "I thought you might enjoy this," he said, apparently no longer in strict work mode.  He looked at the eastern sky, which was now just beginning to change color.  "It should be bright enough in a few minutes."

  They sat down, on a couple of cinder blocks, on either side of the two unconscious thugs.  They were silent for a moment, and then Stryker spoke.  "Do you remember when you found me in Virginia?"

  She looked over at him, thought a moment and smiled a mischievous smile.  "Yeah."  She spoke slowly as she recalled the fond memory, "It was late, and we both had had a long day, so we decided to go back to my hotel room where we finished wearing each other out.  I wound up having to buy that bed, you know.  Then we got up, ate breakfast, drove out to that pasture, and then fought."  She tilted her head slightly, and then her smile became sweeter.  "Why?"

  "Do you remember," he looked down, pick up a small rock, and played with it in his hands, "what you said to me before you fell asleep that night?"

  "I don't recall either of us saying anything at all.  I closed the door, and our mouths did just about everything but speak until we woke up the next morning."  He did not respond, and she grew curious.  "Did I say something?"

  Suddenly, one of the men began to moan and move his head.  Stryker was not comfortable continuing the discussion, right now, so he diverted from it.  He looked up at the sky and said, "I guess it's bright enough."  He dropped the rock, looked down at the man, and stood up, "Let's wake them up."

  Stryker and Kira slapped their respective thug's faces to wake them.  Stryker's opened his eyes, but Kira's remained unconscious.  She continued to slap at him and started saying, "Wake up."

  "Hey, what's going on," Stryker's thug said, trying to move.  "Let me outa these."

  "Oops, I forgot the tape."  Stryker reached behind his cinder block and retrieved a roll of duct tape.

  "You betta let me outa these right now-"  Stryker stepping on the man´s mouth muffled the rest of his threat.  He pulled out a length of the silver tape, then moved his foot as he bent over and quickly strapped it across the man's mouth.  Stryker lifted the man's head and wrapped the tape all the way around his head twice.  He dropped the man's head, tore and end to the tape, and then stood looking at Kira.

  "I think you may have hit him too hard."  He spoke to Kira, but he spoke loud enough, and in such a way that she knew he was putting on a show for the silenced man.  "You didn't kill him, did you?"

  She checked his pulse to make sure he was, in fact, still alive.  Murder was not the objective, here.  She was not entirely sure what the objective was, apart from getting this Tula guy off the Mathis' case, but she knew Stryker would not resort to murder.  "No, he's still breathing."

  "Well, that's okay.  We need only one of them to be awake."  Stryker stepped one foot over the man, and then squatted down over him, staring him in the eye.  Kira saw a little smile creep across Stryker's face, and then he said, "Now.  What can we do to convince Mr. Tula to forget about Mr. and Mrs. Mathis?"

  Inside the trailer, James and Helen were sitting quietly.  Helen happened to look up to see James staring at her body.  "James," she said as a good-natured scolding.

  He looked up at her and suddenly realized exactly what he had been doing.  He smiled, a little embarrassed.  "How many years have I been trying to get you to wear something like this for me?"

  She did not have a response.  She had always been adverse to the idea of wearing such skimpy clothes.  She was not opposed to them as clothing, but she felt they were not the kind of thing she should be wearing, as a doctor and a woman closing in on forty.  James had often subtly tried to get her to buy stuff like that, and he would even say that he didn't have to wear it in public if she didn't want to, but she felt weird about, what was essentially, playing dress up, to her.

  "I can't wear clothes like this, James."  She wished she had a better argument, but she was at a loss to fathom one.

  "Helen," he said, holding out his hands towards her, "you ARE wearing it."  He put his hands on his legs and leaned back.  "And you look amazing," he said in a softer tone.

  She was at a loss for intelligent words.  His sincere flattery and her embarrassment scrambled her circuits a little, so she spouted out the first complete thought that managed to form itself.  "Well, it's a good thing she's muscular, I guess."

  He gave a tiny laugh as he moved his chair closer to her.  He put his palm to the side of her face and guided it towards him.  He looked into her eyes briefly, and then closed them as he leaned in to kiss her.

  Just as their lips touched, they both jumped at the sound of a muffled scream from outside.

  "Oh shit," Helen said quickly as they backed away from each other, both their hearts pounding from the shock.  Helen put a hand across her chest in a reflexive attempt to calm her heart.  James rested his elbow on the table and his head on his palm.

  After about twenty minutes and a few more screams, Helen and James heard two car doors shut and the car turning fast and speeding off, kicking tiny rocks against the front of the trailer.  Almost a minute later, they heard a knock on the door, then Mr. Goodman's voice.

  "It's us."  Mr. Goodman opened the door and looked in at them.  "They're gone now.  You can come on out."

  Helen and James stood up and moved to exit, noting that Mr. Goodman seemed a little happier than they would have anticipated, considering all the screams.  When they were both on the ground, they both looked at Kira, without the wig, and the medium sized blood stains on the front of Helen's blouse and slacks.

  Kira looked down, only just realizing what they were staring at with worried faces.  "Oh."  She handled the material around the stains.  "I'm sorry.  He bled easier than I thought he would.  I'll pay for these.  Or buy you new ones."  She looked up at the doctor.  "Whichever you want."

  The couple looked at Stryker, even more worried.  "Don't worry," Stryker said.  "It's not as bad as you think.  Nobody died.  No permanent damage.  Just sending a hopefully very convincing message back to Tula.  The short version: I told him the sabotage was not your fault, and for him to leave you alone.  I'm going to keep my ear to his door, to make sure he's not going to plan anything else.  I sincerely doubt he will, but if he does, I'll know about it before he gets a chance to carry it out, and I'll stop it.  You can count yourselves as safe, now."

  Helen thought it best not to ask too much.  "So we can go home, now?"

  Stryker lost his smile as he looked at James and said nothing for a brief moment.  He then looked back at the doctor.  "Not quite yet."  He glanced at James again, "James," he said as a prompt, as he turned towards Kira, put his hand on her arm and guided her back towards the open desert.

  Kira suddenly felt decidedly uncomfortable.  She heard the doctor quietly ask what was going on, and then she heard James quietly tell her he would explain.  Kira walked as Stryker guided her, looking back only a moment to see the couple returning to the confines of the decrepit trailer.

  She wanted to ask Stryker what was going on, but her instinct told her not to, at least not yet, if for no other reason than the fact that she would not get an answer.  They walked for almost a full minute, and the way he had been looking around the place, she guessed that this was not specifically a pre-planned destination.

  She looked around and noticed that they were standing in the middle of a relatively barren area.  There were no boulders, trees, or cacti.  He stepped a few paces away from her, turned to face her, looked directly at her eyes for a moment, then put his fist to his open palm and bowed.  She then knew what was going on.

  He had never bowed before.  And this was the first time that she didn't begin with a smile.

  In the whole of his life, he'd never challenged another of his kind.  He was always the one being challenged, so this felt strange to him.  It was also unpleasant.  He did not like making the first move.  It was not his nature, but he did, and so it had begun.  The first blow was struck.

  He had always felt that inner urge to battle their kind, but a greater part of him preferred peace and answers.  All of their kind he'd ever met, or heard about, had always accepted their drive without question, but he always wondered why they had the drive to begin with.  Why were they different from other humans?  Were they even human, themselves?  What drove them so fiercely to destroy each other?

  Their kind were almost three times as strong as normal humans, they healed many times faster, and to add to it, they healed completely, every time.  They have never been able to reproduce with normal humans or each other, not that he'd ever known any other of their kind wanting to bother having sex with each other, apart from himself and Kira.  And what is perhaps the most unusual is that they do not get old.

  He does not know when the first of his kind existed. He'd never met one who was more that a few hundred years old, which in itself was very rare, from what little he'd heard from others.  They might live longer if they were not so compelled to kill one another.

  He did run into a bit of luck a few years ago, however.  He had decided to help a geneticist who was being threatened.  He saw this as an opportunity to possibly have some research done, and it was a bittersweet bonus that, during that mission, he happened to meet up with another of his kind.

  He was not happy that she naturally challenged him, but with her defeat, and some extensive explanation to the geneticist, they had a second test subject.

  The geneticist, Dr. Lynn Thomas, could find no significant differences between the DNA of his kind and normal humans.  Their genes were extraordinary, but still not beyond normal human capability.  He was able to accept this, as far as their strength and perhaps healing abilities were concerned, but what, he wondered, about their inability to reproduce?

  This was where he was fortunate to have been challenged by a female of his kind.  Dr. Thomas harvested egg cells from the female and tested them, along with some sperm samples from him, then later both with egg and sperm samples of normal humans.

  She found that the surface of both the egg and sperm of his kind were coated in an enzyme that acted like acid to normal human egg and sperm, literally eating away at them.  When the when his sperm and his captive's egg met, they both immediately ruptured.

  He supposed it was quite fitting, and just as well.  In the event that two of their kind ever did produce another of their own, it's likely they would wind up killing it anyway.

  Dr. Thomas was fascinated by all of it, and was eager to run numerous tests.  She was also extremely disappointed that she could not reveal any of it to her colleagues, or anyone else in the world but him.  Despite all of that, she still recognized the potential for it to possibly aid her in her own normal research.

  Over the course of two and a half weeks, she had taken samples from every part of his anatomy she could list, and began to study those samples.  At his request, she focused her attention on what might help explain their drive to fight each other.

  He had stayed in the area, as long as he could, to help her in any way he could, but he eventually moved on, contacting her every few months to see if she'd made any discoveries, or needed anything else.  There was always something that she found interesting, but nothing that helped him.

  And there he was, in the middle of the desert, still wondering why he felt this underlying urge to beat, break and annihilate this woman he wanted to always be with.  And why this woman, who also enjoys his company so well, who is perhaps his most trusted friend, as he is likely hers, persists in her attempts, however restricted, to kill him.

  Stryker spat blood from his mouth and waited for her to get up.  He was not sure how long they had been fighting, but they were both nearing exhaustion.  He had never fought this long with anyone.  This was largely due to the fact that there was nothing around to become a prominent factor in the fight.  There were no objects to unfairly use as weapons.  There were no building to come crashing down on top of him, accidentally or otherwise.  There were no cliffs to be thrown off of.

  It was pure skill against skill.  It was how she wanted it with him, and for his plan to succeed, it was how it had to be.  He could not take the risk of having it otherwise.

  She had struck him another blow to the face, and that one, like a few of the others, sent him to the ground.  It was, once again, her turn to wait for him to stand up.  He took an extra moment to notice the position of the sun in the sky.  He could make no precise guess, but they had definitely been at it for a couple of hours, at the very least.

  He had to end this before Kira did, or before exhaustion laid them both down.  He feared Kira more than exhaustion.

  Stryker struggled to stand up.  His left leg was killing him, and he was not sure if it was fractured.  His lips were numb, and his eye was swollen half shut, but he could not tell which eye, because they both hurt, and the sun forced him to squint all the time, anyway.

  She looked worse for wear, as well.  She was favoring her right side.  He may have cracked her ribs when he got in that good knee strike.  One side of her lower lip looked like a plum, and the blood that had been seeping out had apparently already dried over.

  The doctor's blouse had short sleeves, so he could see the bruises that covered almost half her arms, and her whole face was a mixture of red and purple with occasional, small areas of actual skin tone at its less exposed parts.  He imagined that he did not look much different.

  Both of them were breathing heavily, and both of them had weakened considerably, which was of little consolation since the sensitivity of their skin had increased due to bruising.

  They both just stood their staring at each other, both needing to catch their breaths, and he thought to himself, I'd be dead already if this were a normal fight.

  With that thought came the full realization of what he was there to do.  He pretended he was staggering as he moved a little closer.  He needed her to think he was worse off than he actually was.  He summoned his remaining strength and lunged towards her, with impressive speed, sending his right fist straight toward her nose.

  It took a second or two for him to realize that she had deflected the punch and had just sent both of her fists, simultaneously, into his chest.  The air rushed out of his lungs, and, to his dismay, he could not seem to suck any back in- at least, not enough to re-inflate them.

  It was definitely now or never.  He reach out with both hands and wrapped them hard around her neck.  He held and squeezed.

  She tried to knock his arms away, but he was focusing all he had on his grip, except for what he was sparing to try to refill his lungs.  She punched his stomach and sides and face, and he just took it.  She kicked him in both legs, and sent her knee into his groin a couple of times, and he knew he would not be able to take much more of that.

  He didn't want to do it, but he sent his knee crashing into the right of her rib cage, as hard as he could manage while maintaining his grip on her neck.

  She would have cried out loud if she had been able to make any noise at all, but he saw the pain in her expression.  Her lips pulled back across her teeth, and her eyes widened.  Her knees buckled, and she began to drop, but he kept his grip, bending down over her.  Against his palms, he felt the blood fighting its way through the veins in her neck.

  Her breath was almost depleted.  He was not doing a very good job of getting his own back, and he was beginning to feel it.  His head began to feel heavy with the lack of oxygen, but he willed himself to not pass out yet.

  Kira no longer struggled, and her eyes closed, but he had to hold on a moment longer.  For her to merely pass out was not enough, especially since, when he finally passed out, he would not automatically start breathing again.

  He felt the pulse in her neck finally cease.  He waited one more second, released her, and in one final burst of will and strength, and even prayer, he managed one final act before collapsing into darkness.

  "JAMES!"

  James had been sitting in the doorway of the trailer.  He could not bear to watch them for too long before he had finally hid his eyes, but he knew he had to be alert to them, so he had sat in the doorway, with the open door blocking his view, and he listened.  He'd had to listen intently, because the sounds of their blows were faint due to their distance.

  Helen had not liked the situation at all, but after James had explained it, she had supposed she understood, though she had not been sure she actually, truly believed any of it.

  After almost three unbelievable and mentally exhausting hours, there had been a longer silence than usual.  He had held his breath in an attempt to eliminate as much sound as possible, and then, just before the sound of his own blood had begun to pound in his ears, he'd heard the strangled cry.  That was the signal.

  He shouted, "Let's go," to his wife, and then lunged forward, hitting the ground running.  Helen looked over at him suddenly, in a second of passing confusion, then bolted from her chair and out of the trailer.  They both ran as fast as they could, though it was more difficult for Helen, since she was wearing high-heeled boots.

  She thought to herself that perhaps she should have taken them off, after all.  She had left them on because she thought she might step on sharp rocks.  She now wondered if it might not have been worth the risk to possibly get there more quickly.

  It was too late for debate, now, she thought, as they both ran towards the two still bodies that she could barely see lying in the dirt.  Why couldn't they do this closer, she questioned, but that was just another futile thought.  She decided to focus on her foot coordination and balance.

  James slid, like a baseball player, to Kira's side, and immediately tilted her head back, held her nose, and breathed into her open mouth.  Helen arrived and knelt beside Mr. Goodman and began the same procedure.  They both alternated between breathing and heart massage.

  Almost a minute passed before Kira finally gasped and began coughing.  James lifted her into a sitting position and watched Helen still working.  He began to worry even more than he already had been worrying.

  Kira looked around, confused.  "What's going on," she struggled to say.  She looked up at the person next to her, and recognized him as James, but he didn't say anything.  He was just looking at something across the way.  She looked in the same direction.

  She saw the back of her own outfit.  Helen was wearing it, because they had switched clothes, she sorted out in her head.  She was bending over somebo- STRYKER!

  Kira's heart jumped and she scrambled clumsily on her hands and knees to Stryker's head.  She winced with the pain in her side.  Helen was frantically performing CPR on his apparently dead body.  What the hell did he do, she thought.  Her memory was still a little fuzzy.

  Kira held the sides of his head when the doctor was breathing into him, and when she pumped his chest Kira stroked his forehead.

  James watched Kira's torso lobbing back and forth in worry, and he heard her faintly talking to the man, repeating, "Come on," and "Come back to me", and he heard her call him, what sounded like Striker, a few times.  He had no idea what that was about, but the curiosity passed when he saw a tear begin to roll down her discolored cheek.  She must really care for him, James thought to himself.  He was now even more confused.

  Suddenly their was another gasp, and Mr. Goodman began to cough, then Helen and Kira both lifted him into a sitting position.

  Kira quickly moved around to his side so she could see his face.  "Stryker," she said to him, her speech slightly impaired by her swollen lip.  "What the hell were you thinking?  What were you trying to do?"

  Helen had to hold him up.  He blinked, and managed to focus his attention a little more.  "Virginia," he said.

  "What?  What about Virginia?"

  "Doesn't your ribs hurt?"  His head moved about, apparently still a little dazed.

  "Like a fat bastard.  Now what about Virginia?" She held his head still.  He said nothing.  She gave his cheek a light slap.  "Hey," she shouted in a more forceful tone.  "What about Virginia?  I remember earlier you told me I'd said something to you in the room."

  He focused and looked straight into her eyes.  "Yeah," he blinked twice.  "That night, you were almost asleep.  I asked you if you thought you'd ever get married."

  She did not remember him asking such a thing, but if she was almost asleep, he could have asked just about anything and she would not have remembered.  "Okay," she said, "What about it?"

  Stryker inhaled deeply, with slight difficulty.  "I asked you, and you said, he'd have to kill you first."

  She said nothing, but instead thought, trying to remember, but also trying to figure out the purpose.

  He inhaled deeply, again.  "And I know you wanted a good fight with me."

  She thought to herself, yes, he did, indeed, give her a great battle.  She then began to piece together the location and decided lack of surroundings compared to all the other battles they had previously fought with each other.  All those had ended prematurely.  Postponed on account of serious injury caused by falling or getting hit by a car or angry bull, or some shit.

  "Yeah," she said to him.  "It was the best.  Now, what about what you said I said?"

  Stryker dropped his head long enough to mutter, "Oh, brother."  He looked back up at her and grabbed the sides of her face.  "Come here," he said, pulling her face closer to his.  "I just killed you."

  He kissed her gently on the least swollen portion of her lips, then moved her face a short distance away, again.  "Now, would you just fucking marry me," he smiled and shook her head from side to side, playfully.

  She felt incredibly stupid, but also overjoyed.  This guy was unbelievable, she thought.  "I would have never thought you'd be this insane," she said with as much of a grin she could physically manage.  She felt her lip split again.  She winced, but she ignored it.  "Yes," she said.  "I'll fucking marry you," she laughed, and then leaned down to kiss him.  They both tasted her blood.

  He released her face as she pulled back.  "I want to go home, now," he said and began trying to get up.

  "So does everyone," Kira said as she and the doctor helped him to his feet, though mostly the doctor, because Kira's side was in agony.  James stepped in to help his wife.  Mr. Goodman seemed to have a broken leg.

  The doctor said, "I've got a good first-aid kit in the car.  Let's see if we can keep any more parts of you two from breaking, or rupturing, or falling off."

  The bandaged Kira and Stryker sat in the back seat of the Mathis' car, as the married couple gave them a ride back to Stryker's bar where they then helped the injured two inside and into his bedroom.  The bartender and the currently only present customer stared at them as they passed through.

  Mike had come in hurt before, but never looking like an eggplant or needing any help, the bartender thought to himself.  What did he and those three get into, apart from each other's clothes?

  Helen and James laid them both on the bed in the side room, and James asked, "Do either of you need anything?"

  "No," said Stryker.

  "Sleep," Kira said at the same time.

  "Are you sure you don't need us to bring your motorcycle back," James added.

  "No," Stryker said.  "I won't be riding it for a while, and it's probably safer out there."

  The doctor spoke with a more serious tone than her husband.  "Are sure you will be able to keep tabs on Tula?"

  "Yeah," Stryker said, reassuringly.  "I have friends who... well, let's leave it at that.  The less you know, the better off you are.  You can go home and feel safe again."

  The doctor held out her hand to him.  "Thank you, Mr. Goodman.  You don't know what this means to us."

  He shook her hand.  "My pleasure.  And you can call me Mike."

  The doctor nodded and smiled, then let go and moved a bit towards the door.  James stepped up to him and said thanks.  He then extended the same hand across to Kira.  She shook it and he said, "Can she keep the outfit," then smiled.

  "James," she said, surprised at him.

  Kira gave a little laugh.  "I insist."

  "Thank you," he said a second time, quite pleased.

  "James," she said again, scolding him lovingly.  "Come on."

  The two of them stepped out of the room and shut the door.  They both said good-bye to Brody, who responded with, "See ya, folks," in his deep, almost gravely voice.  The couple headed for the front door, and about half way he called out, "Hey."  

  They both stopped and looked back at him.  He nodded his head upward and winked saying, "Lookin' good, there, Doc."

  She smiled, as she turned away again, both flattered and embarrassed.  She held her head down and a hand, like a visor, over one eye, attempting to hide her face.

  "What'd I tell you," James said quietly in her ear, and then held out a thumb up back towards Brody, unseen by Helen, of course.

  "Shut up," she said, hitting him playfully in the chest with her other hand.  He wrapped his arm around her and held her close as they walked out of the bar.

  Back in Stryker's room, he and Kira laid still, with their eyes closed, bodies touching at the sides and closest hands entwined.  Her head tilted to lean against his shoulder, and his head tilted to lean against the top of her head.

  He thought about her.  He thought about how she was so strong inside; being independent and not letting pain get the better of her, and even enjoying it a little, like he did, not for the fact that it was pain, but for the fact that she was not giving in to it.

  He thought about their ride back and how she showed more damage than most people could handle, and she still smiled, and even through the swelling and discoloration, she still looked incredibly beautiful.  And, damn, that was a good fight.

  They had been quiet, but Stryker spoke, now.  "Hey," he said softly.

  "Hmm," she responded, sleepily.

  "You know what sucks," he asked.

  "What?"

  "I'm totally horny, right now," he said, then they both laughed wearily.

  "Me too."  They laughed again.

  "Ohhhh, man," he sighed, and then minutes later, they both fell asleep.