Spray and wait...spray and wait...the tension was pulling itself into a delicate, shining thread which his whole life seemed to be stretching out across, winding around it and spreading thin over its surface.

What really bothered him was the fact that when he looked at it, that fine and fragile length, he didn't add to its shine...he tarnished it.

He knew he wasn't going to make it out of here...but the reason made it all okay. He was here to help...God knew how many. And that made it all okay...a few thousand lives to make up for one. It wasn't enough...that he knew. It would never be enough.

But it was close...and it was good.

He felt oddly calm...but not peaceful, death wouldn't give him peace because something still hurt. Only now it hurt worse, eating into his *soul* with slow, deliberate intent.

Cool blue eyes, a soft, husky voice...and a kiss that ended before it began, buring the scent of vanilla and the taste of fruit into his brain...the second he could've had anything, everything with Rachel, and walked away instead.

Reaching up between doses of liquid nitrogen, trying to ignore how the cold of it was seeping into his fingers and down through his flesh into his bones, he activated his comm. "Patch me through to Rachel?..."

"You'll have to deal with me face to face instead."

Tom spun around, startled by the sound of her voice, oddly loud in the quiet car save for the living monster that was the bomb itself. Just for a second, he couldn't quite register her presence...pale and golden, and nine other kinds of quasi-romantic crap that came from watching too damn many chick flicks with his wife, he was sure.

Then he forgot her long enough to remember the bomb.

"Rachel, what the *hell* are you doing down here?!" he snapped sharply, dark eyes blazing with anger that was borne out of fear.