It was as if Xander’s entire reserve of energy had been exhausted.  The vampires, Samuel’s death, the events of the night, all had conspired to drain him; the continuing snaps and flashes of memory were, out of context, a troubling and debilitating nuisance.

Spike suspected Xander wasn’t being…boosted by Patrick any more.

Xander slept and Spike couldn’t.  He watched, or watched over his lover as Xander spent unconscious hours around the house, the rest of the night, intermittently the next day.

Spike had an overwhelming need to draw Xander and picture after picture emerged, this Xander, Sunnydale Xander, Xander in settings and situations that Spike didn’t recognise but this was how Spike’s breaking memories were manifesting themselves, and the inspiration kept pounding at him and pouring out through whatever medium he had to hand.  He fought the compulsion several times, mainly because wanted to stop the constant production of Xander pictures and draw Samuel while he remembered him clearly.  It made his chest ache and his eyes burn, but it was a necessity.

“Those times when I was out?  When I told you I was getting used to the night again?  I was with Sammy.  I’d cruise around a bit and always end up there for a cuppa and a chat.  Good company.”

“I used to do that all the time before you got here.  Late calls or nights when I couldn’t sleep.  And it started again, whenever you were in LA.  Yeah.  Good company.”

“He was a funny little thing, wasn’t he?  That site hut, those bloody dreadful stories, and he was happy as Larry with his lot.  I asked him once if he wanted more, where he saw himself in ten years time.  He was surprised at that.  ‘I’ll be here,’ he said, ‘doing this’.  And then he went rattling on, explaining that when he said ‘here’ he didn’t mean ‘here’ because ‘here’ would be finished and there’d be a different ‘here’.  He liked that there was always a different ‘here’.  Another site.  Where he could sit in the warm all night and write about demons munching on humans.  Just for the market: he explained that very particularly, ‘cause he liked most humans.  Thought the world of you, Xander.  But you know that.”

Yes, and it was too hard to acknowledge.

“I like this one best,” Xander indicated the picture he’d put to the top of a small pile.  “He smiled a lot.”

“Right, I’ll finish it up so…”  Spike paused.  Xander recognised the anger and upset raging inside him.  “Give it a few days and…”  If we’re still here.  “…I’m going to wipe out that nest.  Angel will help me – if he ever picks up his bloody phone – and Buffy’ll come here if we ask her.  Thorough.  Make it a thorough job.  Too late, but…”

“I thought we agreed.  No self-recriminations.”

Spike nodded.

“Hard though.  When I know.  I know, Xander.”

“He wouldn’t want either of us to blame ourselves.”

“Tell me you don’t.”

Xander couldn’t remember it all, but enough to know it was his fault that Samuel had died.  To say he blamed himself was putting it mildly.  Spike saw it in Xander’s face and fell back on tried and trusted to make that heartrending expression go away.

They spent a lot of time making love.  Nothing new there, but this was different, and not just because Xander was currently prone to falling deeply asleep at any point in the proceedings.  Neither of them were prepared to say it yet, but each time felt like the last.  So in order to make the last time not the last, they made love again.  Which then felt like the last time.

It was wonderful, every…  Last.  …time.  Perfect together, they dreamily acknowledged, there would never be anything better than this.  Xander buried his fingers in the loose waves of Spike’s untreated hair, reminded and reminded and reminded; flashes of memory, and these sparks were discernible and welcome.

“My William,” he said often.

“That’s right,” Spike readily agreed, a vampire by any other name and all that.  “Your William.  And your William loves you with such passion.”

Xander would sleep again, and Spike would drop a hand over the edge of the bed, finding a cold-nosed snout filling it within seconds, and the tongue slithering over his flesh would be quick to follow.  All together, all safe, the ward creaking, hissing, wailing as it was continually tested, only just managing to keep them that way.

Spike studied Xander’s chest as the bloom of pink from the lightning hit took the best part of the day to fade; he didn’t think much about why Xander wasn’t dead because he was terrified by the ‘yet’ that he knew belonged on the end of that thought.  As it faded Spike realised there were areas that were staying flushed, corresponding marks on Xander’s chest and back; it sent Spike to the mirror, and he stared at himself for a while in various positions and at various angles but, as he’d already convinced himself after seeing the discolouring on Jake’s body, with his different physiology…

Back to Xander, back to the gentle caresses, kisses to the new marks, the old scars, feeling once again the urgent need to be joined with this body, inside Xander, Xander inside him, proving how alive in any sense they both were.  Because last time couldn’t possibly have been the last time.

…

Early hours of Monday morning and Xander stirred.  Opened his eyes to find Spike watching him.  Still.  It was all he’d seen since they’d got back from Max’s.

“You have to sleep, sweetheart.”

“I have.  You missed it.”

“You’re a terrible liar.”

“I can’t, Xander, I’m too—”  Spike sighed.  “I just can’t.”

“You’re going to need your strength.”

“I am?  What do you know?”

“I know…that whatever happens you’re going to need your strength.”  Xander rearranged Spike so that the vampire was facing away from him, moving close behind him and snuggling.  “There.  Your back’s covered.  Safe.  Go to sleep.”

Spike wriggled into the heat, moaning quietly when Xander’s mouth fastened over his claimant’s mark.

“Fuck me.”

“You need sleep, not sex.”

“Fuck me, claim me, and I’ll sleep.”

“It used to work,” Xander considered as he licked the scar and made Spike squirm.

“Be fast.  Before you doze off again.”

Xander was fast.

Before he dozed off again he wondered if this was the last time.

…

“Did you sleep?”

“I slept.”

“You awake now?”

“Yeah.  You?”

“Yeah.”  Xander stretched out, wound his toes around Spike’s.  “What did you feel when I was hit?”

“Hit?”

“The lightning.”

“Pressure,” Spike said after thinking for a while.  “Like someone was standing on my chest.  I didn’t question it.  And I didn’t panic because I knew you were alive.”

“Knew as in…hoped?”

“Knew as in knew.  I could…  I knew.  I could feel your heart beating.  Almost as if…your blood was in my veins.”

“I could sense you too.”

“What?  You could feel my heart not beating?  Was that me you were sensing or the nearest rock?”

“Be serious,” Xander chuckled.

“Serious, yes.”

“We could feel each other.  And not in the unable-to-keep­-our-hands-to-ourselves variety.  How weird is that?”

“You want breakfast?”  Spike looked at the clock.  “Lunch?”

“Not bothered.”

There went the last stall tactic.  Spike turned to Xander and rubbed a hand over his chest, deliberately not looking for anything out of the ordinary.

“Xander…”

“I know.  Time for…stuff.  Weird gets to meet the light of day.”

“Something’s happening, we have to deal.”

“Yesterday was…  And, yes, I know I slept through most of it, but the bits I was awake for, it was…  The day before the day.  You know that atmosphere, that…strange, subdued time as the next apocalypse approaches.  We’ve experienced it enough in the past.”

“This isn’t an apocalypse.”

“Private apocalypse?”

Spike hesitated before conceding the point, moving closer until his head was on Xander’s shoulder.

“Maybe.”

“Think there’s any chance we can un-impend the doom?”

“No.”

“We’re not meant to, are we?”

“No.”

“Or we would have asked for help.  We would have explained everything to Willow and Buffy and Angel, we’d have called Giles, and they would have helped work this out.  But it wasn’t meant to be that way.”

“A very private apocalypse.”

Xander wrapped his arms around Spike, pressed a cheek to his brow, and was quiet.

“Thinking or nodding off?”

“Thinking.  Trying to make sense of some of the things I’ve been remembering.  If these are memories, not psychosis.”  Xander thought some more.  “There are things that make some sense.  There’s…  I’m...I’m talking – trying to talk – to Angel but he doesn’t get what I’m talking about, and then – this doesn’t make so much sense – I’m wanting him to bite my wrist.”

“I remember that.”

“So, it did happen?  When I was…not ill.”

“It was as if you were overwhelmed by the other Xander, but the real one, this one, was trying to get back.  And the bite helped to focus you.  If you were scared you’d want the bite, and there were times when you couldn’t find me fast enough…”

“Did he do it?  Did Angel bite me?”

“No.  Came pretty close.  You were very persistent.”

“You’ve tried to persuade me I wasn’t crazy then but…  Spike, I had to be crazy.”

“Says he who was snogging the old man not so long ago.”

“You never left me alone with him, did you?”

“If he’d touched you I’d’ve known, and he wouldn’t be around now, I promise.”  Xander could believe that.  “Anything else that makes sense?”

“Scraps.  Lots of disconnected pictures in my head.  Voices.  Are you experiencing any of this?”

“Pictures.  The ones of you I keep drawing.”

“I don’t always recognise me in them.”

“I wouldn’t either, if I didn’t know better.”  Pause.  “Do you remember the sea?  You kept talking about it.”

“My dreams?” Xander frowned.

“Before the dreams.  You’d talk about waves crashing onto rocks, being able to smell the ozone.  Grass, you could smell grass too.  And it was cold, you’d say the wind was cutting.”  Xander let out a gasp, a small sound of distress, and Spike quickly leant up, scanning his partner’s pale face as brown eyes rolled back in their sockets.  “Xander!”

“William,” Xander choked, “William.”

Spike took Xander by the shoulders, heavy-handed in his alarm, and shook him roughly.

“Xander!  Come back to me!”

With a jolt Xander returned to the here and now, clutching at Spike as he was hauled into a tense embrace.

“Spike,” Xander confirmed for himself.  “Not William.  Spike.”

“I’m sorry, love, I didn’t know…”

“Spike.  I’m here, I’m here.”

“Yes, you’re here.”

“That was…  I feel like I’m suffocating, I want to get up.  Let me go.”

Spike reluctantly released Xander, cursing himself for asking what should have been an innocent question, but their innocence was apparently lost.  Stripped away by whatever was looming over them.

Xander sat for a moment on the edge of the bed, breathing hard, trying to regain his equilibrium but, as soon as he tried to rise, his strength evaporated and he stumbled to one knee, finding himself placed back on the bed within seconds, Spike predictably fussing over him.

“Hey, I’m just…”

His words were stifled by a slashed wrist, and the response was automatic; he drank vigorously, determinedly keeping the wound open as he took his time and pleasure over this intimate act, peripherally aware of Spike’s huffing breaths as he tried to stay calm and not jump his partner.  Xander, however, didn’t hesitate when Spike began to draw away; he threw himself over the vampire’s body while he pursued his fix of blood, grinding their groins together as he dragged Spike’s wrist back to his mouth and sank his teeth into the healing wound.

“In me,” Spike demanded. “Xander.  Get in me.”

Xander was more than happy to oblige, accepting the offer of spreading thighs, the seductive lift of the hips; his body was conditioned to this, finding the right position, right angle, able to stab his cock into Spike and thrust deep, riding the buzz of the blood and the guttural cry of his lover’s satisfaction.

Familiar, so familiar.  Last time?  Xander occasionally checked if there were heel-shaped grooves in his thighs from where Spike pressed his feet when they fucked, practically standing on the muscles, using the leverage to force himself onto Xander’s cock.  Last time?  So familiar.

“So good, Xander.  C’mon, fuck me, fuck your Spike.”  So familiar.  “Hard.  Hard.  Fuck, yes!  Beautiful boy.”  Last time?  “My darlin’, feel you, feel you…”  So familiar.

Xander moved from wrist to neck, breaking into the healing scar, pounding into the receptive body he knew better than his own.  Last time?

“I love you so much, Spike,” murmured against the ragged flesh.

“That’s sweet.  That’s good.”

Last time?

“I’m so happy with you.”

“You have me.  Love.  Have me.”

Last time?

“I don’t want this to be over.”

Abrupt.  Halt.

Spike blinked the hazy gold back to clear blue.

“Love?”

“Last time?”

“No,” Spike smiled, so gentle in contrast to the maniacal fucking.

“You sure?”

The smile grew.

“I won’t waste this time on fear,” Spike answered without answering.  “We deserve better, don’t we?”

“We do, but…”

“Need you.”  The so familiar undulation, the squeeze around Xander’s cock.  “Need you to fuck me.  Let me feel you.  Let me feel your life.”  Spike’s hands in Xander’s hair drew his mouth back to the claimant’s scar.  “Take my blood, make yourself strong.  Fuck me.”

Xander took the blood, fucked like a demon, almost drove Spike through the mattress when he came.  And as he laid slumped over Spike’s purring body, making the most of every comforting touch the vampire bestowed, he tried not to believe that this was the last time.

…

Fed, watered, finally having made it to the living room without incident, they sat looking at one another expectantly.  Expectantly, but with dread.

“Where do you want to start?” Xander asked.  “Because there’s always the whole… ‘I’m some kind of freak, I was hit by lightning and it didn’t affect me’ vein to explore.”

“We’ve been there.  After Sunnydale.  It’s a part of the walking into fire without burning.”

“You said we were different.  Your reasons for being safe weren’t mine?”

Spike was wary of bringing Patrick into this too soon.  Or at all.  And that in itself made him wonder if the man was influencing him.  After all, he wanted to tell Xander everything.

“Can we get back to that?”

“Back from where?”

“The start.  You met Patrick…”

“On a building site, I was…  Spike, you know all this.”

“He gave you a job you weren’t qualified for, and brought you into the fold.”

“He said he knew I’d be able to do it.” 

“He did know, didn’t he?  What you were capable of.  Better than you knew yourself.”

Xander stopped the automatic defensiveness with some effort.

“Yeah.  That was a hell of a chance.  It didn’t make sense him giving me the job.”

“And…”

“This isn’t all going to be about Pat, is it?  ‘Cause…  I love them all, the whole family, and I can’t explain how deep that goes.  But…  Pat’s special.  If I didn’t have him…  I can’t explain this either, but I don’t think I could get over not having him in my life somehow.  It’s not like you, nothing, nobody is as important to me as you, I just…”

“It’s all right, love, don’t panic.  Not yet anyway.”

“Okay.  Okay.  Not panicking.”

“‘The whole family’,” Spike quoted.  Xander nodded.  “Your family?  Or their family?”

Xander looked confused.

“Not family, right, not by blood, but by…feel.”

“Have you ever questioned what you feel?  What they feel?”

‘The way you look at me sometimes. As if…as if…’

‘As if I love you?’

‘That’s so wrong.’

‘We all love you.’

‘It’s wrong.’

“No.  I’ve never needed to.”

“You admitted once that it was all too cosy, that they cared too much.  You said it was part of a package that was too good to be true.”

‘It’s too good to be true.  The whole package.  Too.  Good.  To be.  True.’

Upset was added to the confusion.

“Don’t want to go there.”

“Because you’re frightened that, under analysis, it’ll be proved that they don’t love you for the right reasons; I understand that even if it’s bollocks.  We have to go there.  Sorry.”  Xander waved the apology aside with a resigned expression.  “Okay.  I love you madly, Xander, you don’t doubt that, but I also know you can be an obnoxious, neurotic, controlling, hypocritical git, but their attitude says you’re perfect.”

“Maybe I don’t show them the obnoxious, neurotic, controlling, hypocritical gitness.  No, strike the controlling, they see that all the time at work.  But the rest…”

“Then there’s me.  I’ve treated you so badly at times, I’ve been the biggest bastard, and they know - nothing you can say will convince me that they don’t know – but still they’re kind and loving and altogether too tolerant with someone who turned up and fucked over their beloved Alex’s life and…”  Spike gave an involuntary shiver.  “I have the same problem as you.  Being loved, accepting that I’m loved.  I know they love me and it doesn’t make sense.  It scares me.”

“Their compassion scares you?  C’mon, Spike, hell gods don’t scare you.”

Spike took a deep breath.

“This is bloody hard.  The thinking equivalent of walking through quicksand.”

“You’ve done that?”

“Well, there was this time when Dru—  Subject at hand, Xander!”

“Sorry.”

“The depth of their affection for us…”

“Is there anything else you’d like to cover before you make me lose them and break my heart?”

“I’m not trying to hurt you.”

“I know that.  But it does hurt.”

“And I’m not saying you have to lose them, I’m not saying they’re bad for you, in fact…  Patrick’s the one who keeps you safe.”

“You keep me safe.”

“Listen,” Spike persisted.  “The ward around the house, the property, is Patrick’s doing, not Willow’s.  I asked Red to put one in place but she couldn’t touch what was already there.  It’s massively powerful.  It’s discerning too, it knows to let Angel in but not the other vampires.”

“So, that’s good.”

“That is good.”

“Until you consider that he knows we need protecting to that extent.  Which means he must know a whole lot more.  Does he know about you, what you are?”

“Yeah.”

“You said, way back, you’d asked him to help you.  You thought he knew what you were then?”

“I think he’s known from the start.  Not the William start, but the me start, round about when we moved to this house.  I remember…”

And Spike suddenly did.  Being in Patrick’s office, confronting him, challenging him.  Feeling Patrick’s – Pádraig’s power.  Staggering and clutching his head as the chip fired; Pádraig touching him and drawing the pain away.

“Who did this to you, William?  Who destroyed what you are?”

“Soldiers.  Doctors.”

“Dead soldiers?  Dead doctors?”  Nod.  “Angelus?”

“Xander asked him to kill them.”

Patrick understanding and smiling.

“We’re quite a family.”

“Spike?”

“He…he knew about me,” Spike responded vaguely.  “I asked him to help more than once.”

“And he wouldn’t?”

“Couldn’t.”

“Why?”  Spike gave Xander an old-fashioned look.  “We need to ask him, right.”  Xander paused, studying Spike curiously.  “Something else just came back?”

Spike nodded.

“I used to leave myself notes.  Telling myself that I was going to speak to Patrick and if I didn’t remember that, I’d been influenced by him.”

“And did you remember going to him?  Speaking to him?”

“No.  I didn’t even remember wanting to, and I wasn’t aware of losing the time.  And then…”

“You forgot forgetting.  But you knew something was wrong with our memories, you tried to tell me.”

“His influence has been waning recently.  Before that…he was trusting me a little more, selectively allowing me to hold onto what he thought I needed.”

“How could Pat do this to us?  Are you sure it’s him?”

“Are you?”

“I—”  Xander made himself face up to this.  “Trust your judgement.”  A few minutes of cogitation and Xander was ready to be angry.  “It’s abuse, Spike.  How he’s treated us, interfering with our memories, even…even with Angel’s, he’s…”

“It’s not abuse.”

“Of course it is!”

“Part of the protection.  We might not approve of his methods, but one way or another, he’s always protecting…”

Spike’s voice trailed off as, not an old memory, but a new thought distracted him.  For the first time Spike suspected where he may have gone when they returned from Seattle.

Xander was absorbed in his own thoughts too, head in hands, a picture of despair.  Spike went to him, knelt between his feet, buried kisses in that thick, suspiciously greyless mop of hair.

“Why him?” Xander asked forlornly.  “Why does there have to be something wrong with him?  Is he affecting all of us?”

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

“It’s not just him.”  Spike took the tortoiseshell fountain pen from his back pocket and handed it over.  Xander looked at it, then at Spike with a combination of confusion and dread.  “That pen was given to me – to William – on his eighteenth birthday.  It was from his parents and he treasured it.”

“Jay gave you this,” Xander stated blankly, not wanting to go there.

“I know.”

“It can’t be the same…”

“Look at the age, the initials.  You think those initials are a common combination?  I don’t.”

“So Jake…  What?  How?”

“He spun an almost credible cover story – if you don’t mind heavy on coincidence, that is – and for a time I thought maybe he was being manipulated too, but…  No, Xander, he knew.  He knew he was returning something that William always bitterly regretted losing.”

“I…  So…  Wow.  How did you feel?  When you saw it?”

“Use your imagination.”

“I can’t.  Not for this, I can’t.”  Spike waited.  “I guess…  I’d be thrilled.  And terrified.”

“Thrilled and terrified.  That’ll do.”

“But this wasn’t a bad thing, it was…  It’s a wonderful gift.”

“I don’t deny that, any of that.  You wanted the weird spelt out, love.”

Xander nodded and was, once more, lost in his thoughts for a while as he mulled over what Spike had presented him with so far.  Spike watched his partner suffer and generally felt like a bastard even if it wasn’t his fault, at the same time wishing he himself had a little more focus; there were so many important things he had to tell Xander and they kept swooshing by before he could get a grasp on them.  At this rate he’d tell Xander what didn’t matter, forget what did.  More of the same, he smiled wryly to himself.

“The others?”  Xander’s voice was expressionless, his entire being reflecting the shock of losing trust.

“Not so much.  Beth touches my head,” Spike’s hand went to the site of the chip, “and this bastard thing starts to fire.”

“She’d never hurt you.”

“No, she wouldn’t, not intentionally.”

“She loves you, she told me that, she actually said it.  When they were here recently, y’know the Sunday you arranged for Jay?  We walked around the garden and she was saying how happy she was for us, that she understood why I love you so much because she loves you too.  And she was telling me these stories from your time together at the gallery, and…”

Stopping to catch his breath, Xander looked away, unsuccessfully attempting to hide his grief.

“We don’t know it’s over,” Spike told him gently.  “We just have to deal with it.”

“Now?  Should we be doing something right now?”

“I think you’ll know when.”

“Not you?”

“Maybe me.  But definitely you.”

Xander was on his feet and weaving around the room.

“For fuck’s sake!  When did this become all about me!”

“The moment you heard the words, ‘I’m Patrick MacDonald’.  At least then.”

“At least then?” Xander repeated suspiciously.  “You think…?  What do you think?”

“I don’t know.”

“You mean you don’t remember.”

“I mean I don’t know.”

At the window, Xander leant on the sill, staring out into the garden.

“Spike.”

“Yeah?”

“There’s a storm gathering.”

“Oh, shit.”  Spike hurried to join his partner and they gazed out at the darkening sky.  “Could be just a storm,” Spike said with a complete lack of conviction.

“You said we’d get back to it.  The fire.  You understand any of that?”

“Truthfully?  No.”

“Anything you do understand?”  At Spike’s chuckle, Xander nudged against him encouragingly.  “Anything about anything?  Hit me with the weird, baby.”

“Look at your hand.”

“Which one?”

“Just look.”

Xander concentrated and saw nothing; Spike concentrated for a good ten minutes before he could see the matching rings on their fingers.

“What am I supposed to be seeing?”

Spike took Xander’s hand and made him rub his fingers over the band of platinum that Spike wore.  A short while of thinking Spike had gone completely insane with all of this, then…

“Sweet Jesus!  Where did that come from?  Am I wearing one?”

Concentrating on his own hand, specifically the correct finger, it was a while again before he knew the ring was there.  He touched it with a suitable degree of wonder.

“Platinum,” Spike informed Xander as he drew breath to ask the question.

“How long…?”

“At least a few weeks.  I’ve seen them in a photograph taken on the twenty-seventh of May.”

“And we never knew.  How did you find out?”

“I noticed mine, simple as that.  Reached out to pick up the phone and it caught the light.  Don’t know where they came from, or exactly when, but I’m willing to bet that every other member of the family wears something similar.”

Spike felt a rush of affection at the expression on Xander’s face, and wished he’d made such a gesture a long time ago, bought a token of his love and commitment and put it on Xander’s finger himself.

“I don’t mind this,” Xander stated the obvious.  The metal turned loosely until Xander brought it as far as his knuckle.  “Have you tried…?”

“I know that mine won’t come off.  Bet it wouldn’t even if you cut my finger…”

Xander’s attention was jerked away from the ring and his eyes widened in alarm.

“You’re not going to ask me to do that.”

“No, no, I promise,” Spike assured.

“What else?” Xander asked quickly, wanting to get away from that particular subject before Spike changed his mind and headed off for a hacksaw.

Spike’s mind fogged over for the umpteenth time; everything relevant glided past and he was left with an array of everyday subjects that he felt no longer had any bearing on their lives.  On what their lives were about to become.

“Scars!” he suddenly announced as the mental picture of Jake’s marred body slid into place.  “Scars.”  He crossed to Xander and stripped off his shirt, charily touching the darkening patch on Xander’s chest.  “Scars,” he whispered, impetus lost by the new vividness of this blemish on his lover’s skin.

Xander peered down, shook his head.

“That’s from the lightning.”

“No, love.”  Spike turned Xander and traced the outline of the mark on Xander’s back.  “Jake has them.  Haven’t spotted anything on Beth or Rafe.  I thought it was a bit strange Moira wearing that scarf thing when they were over last, so maybe her neck…”

“Pat,” Xander said to himself, touching his own chin where the scar had begun to show on Patrick’s.

“Yeah.”

“You?”

Spike could see the dread; he put his arm around Xander and gave a gentle squeeze.

“I thought once I spotted something, but it went.  Nothing now.”

“You figured out what they mean?”

“I’ve got some theories that sound too bizarre to put into words.”

“Hey, c’mon, child of the Hellmouth here, I grew up on bizarre.”

“There’s also…  Back in a sec.”

“Where are you going?”

“I need to fetch something from the car.”  Spike left the room and immediately returned.  “Do me a favour?  Can you try to call Angel?  Haven’t been able to get an answer.  And Willow too, phone Willow.”

“And say what?”

“If I’m right you won