i can save today

“Would I make fun of you, my love?” Diana asked, slanting a sly little smirk Steve’s way. And the thought of Steve meeting her sisters again, meeting her team again—though a part of it was difficult to make peace with, the thought settled Diana. She wanted Steve by her side; she wanted him safe. Though she had no idea what or who could have done this, surely there was someone in the Mousehole who would have a better idea. That was something she could latch onto; it was almost comforting. 

She did make a slight noise at Angle Man being compared to Sammy, however. While far from the worst person she’d met, Diana could at least admit she wasn’t the biggest fan. “He’s a thief,” she replied with a shake of her head. “Who has—some sort of strange friendship with my sister, Hera knows why, hence his presence here. I just find it difficult to believe that he would do a stranger a favor out of the kindness of his heart.” She blew out a sigh. “Though I suppose it’s well enough he did, the Fates were kind to lead you to someone who knows us. And back to me.” 

Diana looked back over at Steve, the sunshine through the forest leaves dappling over his face. He looked… Well, he looked the same as he did in this century. She remembered thinking, when she saw him in the market that first time, how much he looked like the first time she had laid eyes on him. Diana swallowed. “And now we have more time.”

That deserved a raised brow of some kind, perhaps even a pointed look, but Steve admittedly got caught on the term of endearment, something that sounded so very lovely and natural that his cheeks could not help but warm with pleasure. This he tried to hide by leaning his forehead against the cool glass of the window, (incidentally discovering that he could move it up and down with the press of a button, something that distracted him quite nicely for a time). 

“I’m a thief,” Steve reminded Diana idly as he moved onto the next button (one that appeared to do nothing more than make an ominous click). “But perhaps that was his angle? Your sister, I mean.  I must have been starting to draw too much attention, asking to use a telephone when one was going off in my hand.” Now Steve supposed he could mention the kind of bribe, but he doubted that she would view it as the same motivational transaction he did. Not even when it had come later and had been completely voluntary on his part. 

(Hopefully, though, he had handed over enough to keep this Angelo fellow out of trouble for some time.) 

Clint was about to ask what Ballyhoo was, thoughts immediately going to the reggae band (which would have been hilarious, but totally improbable), before the explanation. “Sure,” he agreed easily. “I used to lose hours on pinball as a kid at the arcade,” he said with a hint of nostalgia. He didn’t mention that he’d totally lost hours at it as an adult too, back when it’d been a standard PC game and he’d been laid up with this or that injury. 

“But yeah,” he said cheerfully, plucking a bag of chips off the counter graciously to help out, “You saw the TVs in the rec room? You use them like the screen where all the action shows up, and you play the game through a controller. I’ll even be a good sport and see if we have any flying games to give you the edge,” he said with a grin as they headed towards the rec room, feeling pretty chill, all things considered. “I bet you’ll catch on fast. How old are you in there, by the way? You sound a little younger than the Captain Trevor I’m used to.”

Steve’s attempts to picture such games (his mind ultimately conjuring a cross between the controls of a plane and the overstuffed television remote) and how they might work were waylaid by the promise of flying. “Oh?” Having already discovered modern planes thanks to a documentary, Steve couldn’t help but quicken his pace. He didn’t know how long it would be before he could or should fly again (he was very eager to learn), but this sounded like a decent enough compromise. 

“The monster in the woods,” M’gann repeated, trying the words on for size. She remembered that there had, indeed, been something out there stirring up trouble. Something Steve had been looking for with his team, unless she was mistaken. “But what, exactly, is a washed up old god doing in your head,” she asked, knowing full well that there may be no answer for such a question. 

M’gann accepted Steve’s hand and hopped into the passenger seat once more. The wind blew in gusts. Rain poured down in sheets. M’gann pulled on her flight goggles, despite knowing full well that if there was something else in here it was a mental battle she would have to fight rather than anything the simplest goggles could cover. She turned to face him and opened a hand wide over his goggles. They glowed for a moment before steadying and when they cooled the view through them was as clear as a sunny day. The power of a truly seasoned psychic at work could light even the darkness of a ‘washed up old god.’ They were in her territory here as much as Steve’s and as much as the Old One’s. 

“Let us be more than he can handle, then,” M’gann said. She clapped her hands together once only and the plane grew a series of bright lights to help with visibility. Two on each wing, three on the tail, and the brightest one on the nose. Still, she felt something whispering to her. Something strange and dark and deep. There was the sudden memory of being shoved into a box as the unknown force pushed her back into her seat. “No!” M’gann shouted, twisting out of the memory with some difficulty and closing her eyes. When they opened again they were her signature Martian red. The washed up old god writhed away from her, at least for the moment. Her past was, indeed, as dark and devastating as anyone else’s. But M’gann was trained in control. She could hold him off if that was all the ammunition he had for her. “To war, then.”

“It’s how it feeds.” That was instinct, but Steve said it like he was testing the words, that same hesitancy he used whenever he didn’t fully understand something. “Gets its strength.” And if that were true, it made the monster all the more dangerous. There was sinister intentions and then survival; another instinct, nothing left to lose, desperate. 

Steve went from awe to panic and then back to awe, all in a manner of moments. Diana wouldn’t have sent him to a demon, not one she didn’t trust, and anyway, M’gann had managed to do the one thing he couldn’t - scare it away. 

“Nice trick.” Steve bit back the urge to ask if it was teachable, following what any good soldier would take as an order. And War was everywhere,  endless miles of smoke and blood, death and destruction, always the same that it would be hard to say what or who he had lost. Life couldn’t grow here, leaving little pollen, and yet the landscape was loitered with more of those craters that they had just left behind in France - some just as new; most older, burnt out and hollow. They stuck to the fringes,  Steve’s role as a spy keeping him out of the trenches where he was mostly tasked with observe and report. Until he didn’t, doing something stupid like steal a notebook, leaving them to flee, soldiers and the monster in pursuit through the thickening fog that even M’gann’s handy dandy lights didn’t seem to be a match for. 

april 2021.

It had been one of those lovely, lazy mornings that while rare now had been a frequent occurrence last life. At least until it turned into a flurry of movement for no other reason than Steve happened to glance at the nightstand. He’d froze, catching sight of a familiar face, and just like that pieces of a puzzle slotted together, his brain working faster than it had in months. 

(Steve wanted to be pleased about this, to know that he still worked like the older models, but if that were true he would have remembered where he had seen the face to begin with  - especially this face - and would have known exactly what was so significant about 2014. He was no genius, of course, but he was observant, good at piecing things together and recalling details to utilize later. Or at least he had been.) 

And in turn, Steve had also moved faster than he had in months, starting with an uncharacteristic “Shit” as he scrambled out of the bed and “I’m so sorry, Diana” as he turned out his bag, searching for the file he had pulled on Stacey Hinkley. He worked so quickly that while he offered Diana a harried explanation about the familiar woman he hadn’t been able to quite place - her mysterious past, and his deluded suspicions that she might have been a spy - he had already started carrying out a half-formulated plan, typing out a message to Ace Atchinson, who he tasked with setting up a meeting with their shared acquaintance (all that was left was for ‘Stacey Hinkley’ to agree to the promise of a paid gig, hopefully keeping Diana from doing anything understandably rash). Then, a deep breath and he opened the file, revealing exactly why he would share this with her and all the evidence he had unknowingly gathered on Donna Troy’s new life, his eyes bright with an old fire as he’d looked back to Diana. 

(For all he had screwed up on this, it was good; one of those rare miracles that Diana more than deserved, something that made it impossible not to have hope and faith, love and joy - all those dazzling emotions that surely not even the monster could touch.) 

Still. He forced himself to play the part of buzzkill after, using the drive out to Dunich Jezero (a location he had not risked sharing with Diana) to gently remind her that Stacey had given him no indication that she remembered anything about her life as Donna Troy, let alone suspected anything was amiss in the life she led now. What they would have to do if they shared too much and she responded poorly, he hadn’t yet decided. Steve could only hope that if his ghostly file wasn’t enough to convince her, Diana would be able to work some magic with the Lasso. 

“It seemed impossible to you,” Diana replied, tone pitched low and gentle. Because Ares would have seemed impossible, then. Now, well—there were plenty of theories in Man’s World as to what, exactly, gods were. Funnily enough, most of those theorizing did not welcome Diana’s, or anyone similar’s, insight. 

But she hummed in response to Steve’s question, noting the idleness of it. And that he did not ask more. Diana chose to take this as a sign, offering Steve a curl of her lips. “Perhaps not as much as you would imagine,” she said with some humor. “I am no longer the only amazon to have left Themyscira, but I am the oldest. And—ah,” she cut herself off, remembering something that might well amuse Steve. “You were right,” she said, humor seeping into the words as a smile caught across her face, “I was not sculpted from clay. Zeus and my mother brought me to life in, ah, the regular way.” Her eyes sparkled as she looked away from the road, wondering if she could distract Steve from everything around them, even just for a moment. “Though my sister was. And I have yet another who is also a daughter of Zeus. So, you see, not all that unique after all.” Her smile swayed. “You’ve met them, in this life. You will meet them again, I suppose.” Diana cleared her throat, eyes, returning to the road. 

“The man you were with—he gave you no trouble? Truly?” 

If anything, Steve became even more focused, letting out a stuttered sound that could have been a laugh, but was more likely a choking cough if the slight pink of his cheeks was any indication. He couldn’t help but finally turn away from the window, though, at the mention of a sister. Two, actually. The thought alone earned a bright smile, but beyond that, he didn’t know quite where to start. There was the Zeus of it all, of course, but: “Now, see, I can’t tell if you’re having me on or not anymore.” 

Can babies be sculpted from clay? Either way, he felt a pang of sorrow for Hippolyta, who it seemed was destined to lose her daughters. It was just as comforting to know, though,  that Diana would have constant companions, sisters she would not have to worry about watching die (over and over again apparently). “I look forward to seeing them again.” Nodding resolutely, he had chosen his words carefully - something about that statement had bothered Diana (he guessed it was meeting again) and anyway, Steve needed to keep reminding himself that as new as everything seemed, he was very much walking into a life already well-lived. 

Clint wasn’t sure what he’d expected his life to look like back when he’d been starting out in the business, but he was pretty sure it hadn’t been hanging out in a Balkan castle with Wonder Woman’s amnesiac boyfriend between hunts in a kind-of-haunted forest, exchanging snacks and chatting. What a trip. He smiled around the spicy chip.

“That depends on what sorts of things you like to do,” he replied cheerfully. “In my case that’s mostly watching the worst trash TV I can get my hands on or trying to trick someone here into playing darts or pool with me. Though…” A slow grin tugged at his mouth. Why not? The guy wanted entertainment. “Have you tried playing any of the video games set up in the rec room?”

Steve shook his head and straightened, both excited at the promise of a would-be adventure and pleased to hear that some things didn’t change.  Those were even games he was fairly decent at, which was good to know. He wanted to try something new, but at least he’d have a skill to fall back on if he made too much of a fool of himself. Which was likely - Steve wasn’t that familiar with the term video (certainly not in the way it was being used) and he couldn’t know that he wouldn’t even have muscle memory to fall back on, his present self not much of a gamer beyond the early iterations that would have been around when he was a kid. 

“It was,” Diana confirmed, mouth twisting at the thought of her wayward brother. But Steve’s follow-up question was enough to distract her before she could ponder on Ares much further. “Everyone was fine,” Diana confirmed, a strand of sweet comfort twisting through the husk of her voice. “Apart from mourning you.” 

She paid close attention to Steve’s answer, eyes flicking between him and the road; they bore into Steve, dark and watchful. Her shoulders ratcheted up slightly for a moment, knuckles paling on the steering wheel, anticipating that any second he’d tell her that he felt a low-lying dread that permeated everything, that twisted through his mind, that—

Was not the issue. Diana’s shoulders relaxed. 

“They might be,” she noted with a hint of amusement. “I never thought to ask whether you had braces as a child in this life. But yes—I would say that makes sense?” she posited, thoughtful, as she maneuvered them out of the city and into a dirt trail running through the woods. “It must be strange, to be in a body that has seen a different lifetime than the one you remember,” she said, a frown tugging at her mouth. “Each of your lives has been… Unique, in their own way.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t believe you.” 

Not because he thought it would have changed anything, he didn’t, but he understood the way doubt could poison a psyche, knew how dangerous it could be when someone refused to entertain even listening. He should have known better, cultivated the patience to entertain possibilities and reach a middle ground.

Really. There were a lot of things that he should have done. Stubborn and bull-headed were perhaps traits they shared, at least back then, but Steve with his tunnel-vision would have done anything to get off that island, unconcerned where that might lead Diana herself. It turned out alright, it seemed, so it was hard to completely regret past choices as he studied Diana’s (very modern) profile, the ease with which she handled the car, listened to the growth and lilt of amusement in her voice. He liked to hope that this meant she had found her place here, a blessing even when the memory loss made all the changes feel like whiplash.

“Do you know what it is?” M’gann asked, watching him closely, but allowing her own mind to travel within the limited expanse he had created for them. Searching for the source of the voice without knowing exactly what she was searching for. If anyone was qualified to hunt down a strange psychic phenomena, it was Miss Martian. But she wasn’t foolish enough to go all out without all the information she could get, first.

She looked at him in puzzlement. “You seem amazingly calm about this,” M’gann waved her hand around in time with the rumbling murmur. The rumbling echoed across the skies in the form of lightning, rain beginning to drop down upon them. First in moderation, then in sheets. M’gann thought a large yellow umbrella into existence and held it above the both of them. “Tell me everything. Please. I need to know what we’re working with, here.”

Whatever it was, it clearly wanted complication and isolation. It wanted the pollen to stay exactly where it was. Perhaps it was part of the reason that Steve had not healed naturally with time when most people certainly did. It certainly wanted the telepath in residence to make her exit. “I’m not leaving you,” M’gann said, steadfast. “We still have to clear the pollen regardless of what we decide to do about your, er, friend. Come on. Where are we headed next?”

“It’s the monster in the woods.” He knew that instinctively, even if the details of how he might have encountered such a terrible force were still buried (or, more aptly, covered in pollen). Now what had Diana called it? He’d never be able to explain it as eloquently as she had, but: “A washed-up old God.” 

It was less than ideal, flying in the rain, but Steve felt safer behind the controls, more himself, and so he wouldn’t let something like low visibility deter him. He simply offered M’gann a helping hand and then climbed in, checking to make sure the mounted weapon was loaded. 

“This is probably the closest we’ve gotten to it in months.” So if Steve seemed calm that was probably why, odd and contradictory a sensation as that might be.  Because there had been a time when he had not been anywhere near calm, falling apart at the seams, unable to grasp what was happening inside his own mind. But here was the physical proof, knowledge and data that he could take home and analyze, assess. 

(Later it might dawn on him precisely what he’d lost, but there wasn’t time to dwell on it now, the situation far too perilous.)

And so they were.

M’gann’s dress faded into an Amelia Earhart-esque flight suit before either of them could notice, instantly changing with her surroundings. She leaned forward in the passenger seat to hear him over the psychic din of the propeller and the great wide sky that had suddenly overtaken them. Steve likely wouldn’t be able to hear it, he was certainly talking as though he didn’t, but there was something in that fog that was screaming at them. Something otherworldly and wild. She had to practically hang onto his seat and pull her head beside his to hear his voice over it as she held the little vacuum out of the aeroplane to catch the pollen among the clouds. 

She was about to answer him. About to try and find the words to console the lost boy who wouldn’t admit he was out on more than an adventure. She was about to say something when they came down to the Earth with a terrific thud.

M’gann gasped, half certain that they had crashed in the fog. But the plane was alright. The screaming of the psychic sky was merely an echo in M’gann’s mind now, though it was replaced by… “Do you hear it, too?” It was a low murmur. Like someone speaking underwater. M’gann knew full well that the noise was telepathic in origin, but it was Steve’s mind. There was always a chance he was in touch with something. 

Slowly, slowly, slowly, M’gann turned herself around and took hold of their surroundings.  She eliminated the wisps of pollen delicately, with a feather duster instead of the vacuum as her hair whipped around her face. “I’m afraid this is not a memory that’s meant to be repaired.” No. No. Aside from the crater, everything was exactly as real and as horrifying as it was meant to be in this slice of time. She floated down beside him, watching in silence as Steve lifted the soft remains of the blanket and though she never allowed her feet to touch the ground in that crater, she put a hand on Steve’s shoulder and allowed him to take his time. 

No, he didn’t, but Steve didn’t need to ask ‘hear what?’ to know what M’gann must be talking about either. This was the monster Diana had warned him about.

“I feel it.” 

All the time. He had mostly learned how to ignore it - accepting the truth of it, keeping busy, those quiet moments with Diana. The last few days it had been easier to isolate, an unsettled but obviously foreign sensation that was usually more pervasive, growing with him, creeping into those dark, protected corners of his mind where he buried the overlapping memories and the ones too painful to think about. And apparently he had done a good job, because he hadn’t even noticed they were missing. 

Steve refused to waste time, climbing out of the crater with determined steps that shed the very last vestiges of the young lieutenant. He didn’t look back either, he wouldn’t, resolved to move forward, if only to see any other damage there might be. But -

Clint popped open the bag and popped a chip into his mouth gratefully, leaning his hip against the counter and observing the other man. For someone who’d always looked so harried from his notes and the glances Clint’d gotten in the hallways, he seemed younger now. Despite having been in the middle of a war that he’d died in. 

But from what he knew, that was old hat to Captain Trevor, so.

“It’s always the simple things,” Clint replied with a head-tilt and a smile, holding out the chip bag to the other man. “Betting you didn’t have a lot of that where you just came from?” 

Steve braved the heat until he couldn’t stand it anymore, heading straight for the refrigerator. He meant only to grab a bottle of the fancy water, but the milk was far too tempting (at least if he ignored the bewildering fact that it came in cardboard - it couldn’t be any worse than armored heifer.). 

“We didn’t have a lot of things.” Steve had yet to decide if this was for better or worse, but so far the discovery process had been just swell and so his voice remained bright as he went through the motions, rifling through the cabinets and pouring himself a glass. He took a nice, big gulp, tried not to look too relieved when he finished, and then popped a chip into his mouth, silently offering the carton in turn. “Hm, not bad. Though I think I might prefer the classics.” Chips. Fries. It’d be a shame if those things went out of style. And not just food either.

“Cappuccinos are lovely, Steve Trevor,” Diana noted with amusement, as she reached out to pluck a pastry from Steve’s hand. “Not all of us can subside on black coffee alone.” At least his question was a simple enough question to answer, Diana thought. She hummed around the taste of raspberry jam as she took a turn, everything between them so simultaneously domestic and unfamiliar that she could have laughed. How strange, to remember that this Steve was a man she’d only known for a handful of days, but who’d managed to command such a hold over her soul nonetheless. She’d known, even then, that their souls were entwined. That they were something special, something fated.

“You work for an agency called ARGUS,” Diana began, “under Homeland Security. The Advanced Research Group Uniting Super-Humans. It used to be…” Diana sighed. “It was a good agency, until recently. Offering support and research to those of us with superhuman gifts we use to help people. You’re the head of a special research taskforce called the Oddfellows… It was a coincidence that you ended up in Sokovia,” Diana explained, swallowing her last bite of pastry and sneaking her hand over to wipe her fingertips on the edge of Steve’s napkin. “There is a creature lurking in the woods. Something supernatural, or alien, ARGUS thought, so they sent you to investigate. You’ve been working with your team and with mine, secretly,” Diana said, turning her dark eyes Steve’s way. “We think it may be a desiccated old god. It’s been affecting your mind adversely. I wonder…” 

She licked her lips, eyes flicking between Steve and the road. “Apart from your missing memories and those injuries, how do you feel?”

It was a strange feeling, being told about, well, himself. He couldn’t quite decide if it even sounded like him or not. At least not until Diana got to the part about working with her and her team secretly. Some things didn’t change. Things like god. 

“Like Sir Patrick. Ares.” His brow furrowed. “That was Ares, right?” He never did get a chance to ask. There were so many things he would just never know. And while he had made his peace with that, the realization that an opportunity had been miraculously returned to him suddenly became quite apparent. Some questions could wait, nothing more than passing curiosities about the future, but the ones that bubbled up now were far too pressing to even worry about common decency or politeness. Steve barely remembered to swallow, the words simply bursting out of him with the concern they demanded (even decades too late). “What about the boys? Did they make it out okay? And Miss Candy?” He couldn’t believe he had sent her to work with Sir … Ares. 

He had suspected this might happen. When he was finally forced to slow down. It made Diana's question a particularly difficult one to answer because: “In some ways I feel better than I have in years.” He just felt lighter. The adrenaline, probably, and the exhilaration that came with simply being alive when he very much knew he shouldn’t be. “But I suppose something is off.” He didn’t know how to explain it any better than that, other than to say: “It’s like -” Steve held a hand out in front of him, “- These are my fingers. I know they’re my fingers. I recognize them, but they don’t feel like mine. Not quite.” 

There were still plenty of aches and pains, but they were in all the wrong places. That old stiff shoulder, aggravated by the crash on Themyscira, felt just fine. Now it was his neck and the irritating buzz of itchy skin. 

M’gann watched him for a moment. Her brow furrowed in a good hard look as she puzzled his surface emotions out. Interest. Embarrassment. Curiosity. Then she exclaimed, laughingly, “I don’t look cool when I’m all static and fizz! Golly. I look like I’m fading in and out of existence, Lieutenant Trevor!” Okay, maybe it did look a little cool. “But if we ever happen to find ourselves clinking glasses of the Red Bull, I will let you see for yourself.” 

She heaved the tank of the vacuum onto her back like a knapsack. “Poison Ivy is the lovely lady who left all of this pollen here where it doesn’t belong. She has the power to understand and control plants. Among other things. Tends to use it to screw over people who don’t really deserve it, unfortunately. Think of all the good that kind of gift could do for the world if its owner weren’t completely bonkers.” M’gann’s vacuum gulped up another plume at the corner of the porch as she followed Steve. “No doubt we’ll run into more than pollen in some areas. Perhaps she’s sewn some seeds for us to take care of.” She elbowed him playfully. “Nothing we can’t handle.” 

“Trevor Ranch,” M’gann repeated. Her Martian mind was taking in every bit of it to recreate in her own mind later, so she could set it off across the ink black sea of memories she visited every night. It was a reflexive function. One that revealed itself both in the psychic realm and the more physical plane. “Did you grow up here, then? In one of your lives?” The questions were soft and mild. It was clear that he didn’t need to answer either of them if he didn’t want to. 

She greeted his parents sweetly, with handshakes and a little curtsy, and tried her best to ignore their arguing when the two of them entered the house without them. Thankfully, the pair had said nothing about her unusual choice of backpack, and either way… Both her clothing and Steve’s had changed to fit the scenery. M’gann now wore a faded pastel dress with a pretty white lace collar. 

Steve’s bedroom was, indeed, littered with pollen. It shimmered green and yellow and pink, impossibly sticky to the touch but practically dancing into the vacuum cleaner. “There. Now that should feel a tad better,” she said, admiring the key as she finished dusting off the room. “Ah, look at that. That’s a psychic segue if I’ve ever seen one. Where are we headed?” M’gann raised an eyebrow, knowing full well that the key would likely pull them there as soon as he said it aloud.

“The world.” 

Steve blinked and they were in the plane, a runway laid out in the field of wheat, shining gold beneath the sun. But beyond that, a thick fog crept forward, dark and unsettling. It sent a shiver down Steve’s spine,  frightening him enough that he turned the nose of the plane around, barely clearing the barn when they took flight. 

“In the life before me -” His first life, that’s what this was, still so strange to think about. “- I left home and followed in my father’s footsteps, joining the army. But I didn’t -” Steve swallowed, casting a nervous glance over his shoulder. He hoped the fog wouldn’t creep past the fence, overtake that precious farm.  “It wasn’t who I was. Then, with nothing to fight for, it wasn’t even who my father was. So I completed my tour and set off, tried to find myself.” 

The details came easier, the more he talked and the farther they flew. More of that fog hung over certain places, but he stayed clear of it, following the trail of pollen through the clouds. He detailed the odd jobs he took just to get by and enthused about all the people he met, who taught him a number of useful skills, some less than noble. 

“The more I traveled the harder and harder it got to write home.” Steve’s voice was heavy and only grew heavier as they descended, zooming past the Eiffel Tower, still so very new. “I don’t -” Steve’s brow furrowed, the memories that had started so clear had suddenly turned fuzzy. More pollen to clear, perhaps. They were coming in for a landing, after all. “I don’t think I ever managed to pick up the pen, too worried what my father would -” 

They landed with a jolt, Steve hopping out of the plane with little concern about if it was secure. What did that matter when it wasn’t real and the scene before them was one of devastation. A crater sized hole sat where a town once had been, something unseen leaving behind charred husks of hollowed out buildings and billowing smoke that twisted into poisonous clouds. “Be careful what you touch.” An unfamiliar (to a younger Steve anyway) authority hardened his voice, the words more order than warning. Yes, pollen mixed with ash, unusually bright against the soot, but Steve wasn’t sure there was anything left here for even M’gann to salvage. Nothing except -