Chaos.

It flowed around them in great swirling eddies and currents, bodies passing around them on the right and on the left. Turns out one of the best places to get stabbed is in an operating room two feet from the universe's leading surgeon, but still the assassin was only just clinging to life.

Katie sat shellshocked, another pillar of stillness in the preop room, sitting on the edge of the bed. Her mask had been remove, but her glasses, and gown were still flecked with little spots of blood. Her gloves were removed, but the wrists of her gown were stained red.

She might have killed someone, but it was to save her friend's life.

No one was angry with her.

In fact, it took Krill and the other surgeons several seconds before anyone moved to grudgingly help the attempted killer.

Conn had been called, and as director of the Arcadia intelligence community, he was wildly embarrassed for their failure to detect such a blatant insider threat. Information was still incoming, but what they did uncover wasn't great. The attempted Killer was Jules Smithson, a long time veterine of surgical nursing, though digging through the HR records hadn't exactly been encouraging.

Disciplinary actions, and questionable evaluations.

By all rights they were talented, yes, at least in a surgical suite, but they were known to have an attitude problem, as well as difficulty getting along with their peers. The other nurses admitted, with some embarrassment, that Jules had admitted to hating Arcadia on multiple occasions, and complained constantly about never receiving more responsibility.

All in all the picture painted, was of a disgruntled employee whose poor attitude and grandiose views of themselves, all culminating in a perfect target for radicalization by the True Darkness terrorist organization.

Celex felt horrible of course, said he should have noticed something was wrong earlier, but he was so focused on keeping Sunny alive that he had missed all the earlier signs.

No one blamed him of course.

But there were other things to deal with in the moment.

Adam and Sunny stood, mirroring their earlier confrontation just a few feet apart from each other. Adam held Nyx in his arms, while Astra lay asleep in the baby carrier at his side. Looking into Sunny's face, he was looking for any evidence that the person he fell in love with was still there.

They were at least off to a better start than Ramirez and maverick had been.

Neither of them said anything at first. Adam didn't know what to say, while Sunny seemed to be examining him with a critical eye.

Who would she be when her two sides came together?

Maverick had flipped on a dime, but Celex had remained mostly unchanged.

Adam didn't know why he and Impetus were still separated, but that thought was secondary to his fear that Sunny had changed.

Sitting on their silent island of quiet, separated from the chaos around them, Sunny or Apotheosis took a step forward reaching a hand slowly upward until the very tips of her fingers stroked the length of his jaw. He shivered, feeling every movement of her fingertips as they were slowly drawn over his skin. By the end she was standing close, towering over him by a good foot, her golden eyes regarding him with quiet interest as she cupped one side of his face with a hand.

She tilted her head, "So worried. Keep making that face and its going to stick permanently."

Her voice was the same, and her humor was still in tact.

"Who.... am I talking to?" he wondered, but didn't pull away from her hand.

She tilted her head, "Does it matter?"

"It depends? Does Apotheosis like me as much as Sunny?"

Sunny hummed in amusement, "Both of them tolerate you valiantly out of the goodness of their hearts."

Adam snorted, and in his arms Nyx whimpered softly feet kicking, squirming against his chest. Her voice quivered a little, just on the edge of crying, but Sunny leaned in just then. "There little one, I am here," She glanced playfully up at Adam as she said, "You don't have to look at your dad's face anymore."

Adam relinquished his daughter with a frown and a, "hey." But Sunny took Nyx and she quieted down, nuzzling up against the hard carapace of Sunny's chest. With every passing moment Sunny, seemed to be coming back to herself, defaulting to her normal facial expressions and old mannerisms.

Adam tried not to stare to much.

"How do you feel/"

"Odd...." She said, "I.... Was both of me for a second there but now.... She's sort of faded away. I can remember being her, but somehow... it just feels odd."

Adam breathed a sigh of relief which quivered unintentionally with his nerves.

He almost became a single father tonight.

Maybe forever.

"This has to end."

Sunny lifted her head from Nyx, "What has to end."

Adam clenched his fist, "Kazna, True Darkness, the Void, everything. They've fucked with our lives for long enough, and I don't have enough fingers to count the amount of times she has tried to kill you. At some point this has to stop because I am not living my life like this. The longer we let this go, the longer we leave ourselves open to screw up, and one of these days, she's going to get what she wants." he motioned harshly towards Nyx and Astra both sleeping soundly, "What if we slip up and she gets one of the kids..... We can't let that happen. We HAVE to end this."

Sunny lifted her head, "We have said things like this before."

Adam paused, then nodded, "We have. I know it, but this time we have no other options. We know where she is, we know where she is getting her power, if we can work to cut off that supply then maybe we have a chance of making a real impact."

Sunny looked down at the tiny body held in her arms, "That would mean leaving them again, leaving kay...... he's spent a good chunk of his life without us." HEr voice was not hesitant, simply stating facts.

He nodded resolutely, "I would rather be gone for some time now, when he probably wont remember, than let this continue only to have him die before he reaches adulthood. We have to make a sacrifice and it's better to do it now before we can overthink"

Sunny agreed with him, of course she did.

He made a good point.

They had to end this.

The moment ended with their silent agreement, but finally Sunny turned her attention to katie, who sat cold and pale on the edge of her mattress. The room was still a wash of voices and running fet and confusion. No one had stopped to speak with katie in so many minutes. Still holding Nyx, sunny motioned Adam forward.

"We should get you washed up." He said keeping his voice low and even.

Katie stared at her hands, lips pale.

"I don't think they are going to survive....."

Adam paused, and looked over at Sunny, "Page Riss will you."

She nodded and stepped out of the room for a moment, while Adam sat next to her, "I really think you should get changed. You'll probably feel better." She was slow,, and lethargic but seemed to agree with him well enough as she stood and accepted the scrubs he offered to her.

WHen she moved, the motions were disjointed and awkward. A couple of times she almost ran into something, and he had to steer her bodily into the next room where a shower and some lockers were waiting. He stood outside the door while she showered and got dressed.

She was in their for a long time, but he could hear her moving around, so he didn't knock to interrupt.

Riss appeared before she was out antane vibrating in some measure of concern.

Together they waited.

When the door finally opened, Katie appeared in a billow of steam, her skin bright pink and shining with heat. Her dark hair had been pulled back in a wet tangle of hair, and her glasses were coated in fog, which she didn't bother to wipe away.

She stopped in front of them and wobbled a bit.

Riss took her hand and led her into another room, leaving Adam and Sunny outside the door, still within range if they were needed, but not so close as to be able to hear what was going on.

She was somewhere close to shock, and while the heat of the shower had helped, Riss still insisted she take a blanket. She sat there, curled up and staring at her hands which, where clean and smooth and pale as ever, "I.... killed someone..." She said mind still stuck in that moment.

Riss sat with her, "The attacker is not dead yet." he rested a hand over hers, "You did what you had to do, had they been allowed to move forward, Sunny would be dead. A single nudge against Krill could have ruined everything. So thank you for saving Sunny, and Krill's sanity."

She remained quiet for a long time, "What do I do?"

"Deep breaths, don't let this moment become a trauma you squirrel away. Talk to me, tell me what happened, what you were thinking, in as much detail as possible." Krill worked to talk her through the moment , allowing the logic and her own explanation turned to logic rather than emotion. A lot of times, people draw into themselves, hide bad experiences and refuse to talk about them, refuse to even think about them. overtime , emotion warps the narrative, and causes later issues.

Analysis and detail, often have the affect of removing emotion from a memory. Together, analyzing what had happened, they managed to bring Katie slowly out of her shocked state. She was shaken, even a little confused, but she admitted that she did the only thing that could have been done to save Sunny's life.

She had never seen herself as a killer.

And she didn't have to because Self defense was completely valid.

No one would blame her.

So neither should she.

Off in the other room Sunny and Adam brooded together, knowing what was soon to come. Both of them had the same thought on their minds.

If they were to keep their children safe, something had to be done"