Present

Walking in the frigid January air was an assault on my senses, to say the least, but I could get through it because of where I was heading. Accepting the job offer we knew I would get for covering up the Director's involvement with Queen was step one of the plan.

And now I was heading to the safe house where I would find out step two, if they made yet it.

I walked up the cobblestone pathway to the front door of the single-story home, smiling at the ramp that was placed over the steps. Once I reached the door, I knocked four times in our set pattern and the door cracked open, Leigh's smiling face greeting me.

"Hello there." He said, opening the door for me and I walked in, seeing Alexis lowering her gun from her position down the entrance hall.

"Hi Lex." I said with a smile. Even having a gun pointed at me wouldn't stop me from feeling the excitement I felt.

"She's getting impatient." Alexis told me. I grimaced.

"I'm sure she'll forgive me once she sees that I have brought her..." I lifted the coffee cup in my hand. "Coffee and information." I said. Alexis just rolled her eyes and walked away to her room. I then walked into the lounge room that came off of the entrance hall and found Ciara and Jacques sitting on the lounge, Jacques feet resting on Ciara's lap, balancing a laptop on top of her raised legs while Ciara held her hands around Jacques socked toes.

"Hi, you two." I greeted them, furrowing a brow at the position they were in.

"Her feet get cold, and apparently I have warm hands." Ciara said, a smile on her face.

"Amour, your hands are wonderful little heaters. But you can use them for better things if you want-"

"Jacqueline, if you want that kind of action, maybe you should actually give me the massage you promised me a week ago." Ciara cut Jacques off. Suddenly, Jacques closed her laptop and put it on the floor, pulling her feet away from Ciara.

"Fine, let's go now."

"Esmond is here-"

"They don't need us." Jacques argued, and I felt like I was overstaying my welcome, so I crept into the next room where I found Micah.

"Nice to see you again." I said, reaching my hand towards him.

"Good to see you, too." He took a hold of my hand and shook it. "She's getting impatient." He added, which made me smile.

"You know, Lex said the exact same thing." I said as I let go of his hand and started walking again. He walked next to me into the next room, which was void of all furniture except for a table. It had been deemed the 'plotting room' by everyone who lived here. I was just visiting, even if I wanted to stay, and so was Micah. I had MI6 to deal with and he had his 'family business'.

"Thank you for finally fucking showing up." I heard Sierra's voice before I saw her. She smiled as she locked eyes with me, pushing herself into the room in her wheelchair.

"You're welcome, darling." I said as I walked over to her and leant down to kiss her. "How's the rehab coming?" I asked her. She sighed.

"Good and bad. I can occasionally get a toe twitch so they're hopeful for an eventual recovery, but I'm in no rush." She said, still smiling. "And before you ask, Alexis is checking that I'm taking the painkillers, and that I'm not taking too much."

"That's not what I was going to ask next, actually."

"Oh, what were you going to ask?"

"If you wanted to find out everything that I know so far..." I said, letting her wheel herself to the table before handing her the coffee I brought for her. She always complained that the coffee in the house was shit, that they needed to get a proper machine, but she was the only one out of seven that cared, so she continued to suffer.

"Ah, that I would like to know, actually." She said as Jaxon and Kieran came into the room and stood next to each other at the table. I had noticed that they never went for PDA like holding hands, but the way Kieran looked at Jaxon like Jax was his property was enough for everyone to know what was going on there. Lex and Leigh came in next, hand in hand. As it turned out, the stress of the potential end of the world had spurred the two into giving into each other during the spare time they could find in between attacking safe houses and warehouses.

"Ciara and Jacques?" Sierra asked. I shook my head.

"I think they're preoccupied." I said. She took a slow breath that I could tell was being used to calm herself down.

"Alright, well, first things first. Did they buy my fake death?" She asked, looking me in the eye with a smile on her face.

"Yes, quite easily actually." I answered.

"And did you get your promotion?"

"Yes, once I go back after my month off, I start." I said.

"Excellent, now is there anything I should know before we get into this?"

"There's apparently 'investors' in MI6. I'm going to assume that the investors are like Queen, criminals willing to pay money to government bodies for protection. I'm apparently going to learn about it when I get back."

"Micah, any clues about who that could be?" Sierra asked as she placed the notebook she's had on her lap onto the table.

"I have some ideas, but I would rather investigate them and be sure before naming any names." He said, Sierra nodded. "And Max-"

"Not Max, not anymore. Max died in Spain. You can call me Sierra." She cut him off, not even looking up from the notebook she had opened.

"Sierra, I looked into the Court members that got away, the ones you were worried about. You won't need to worry about them anymore." He said simply.

"Thanks for dealing with that for us. You've saved us a lot of future trouble." Sierra said, finally looking up from her notebook. "Okay, if everyone's ready?"

"Born ready." Jaxon said, as I placed a hand on Sierra's shoulder, reading over her notes. They were heavily descriptive, and she reached her hand up to rest on top of mine as she began the meeting.

"Alright then. I would like to officially close Phase One, which was destroy Queen, and welcome everyone to Phase Two; destroying or fixing MI6. Whichever is easier."