"Nooooo!" I screamed as the full horror of the situation sank in. We are all chained up and dying in the dark, but Avon will die first. I almost envy him that death- quick, but not easy. No, not easy at all.

"Vila! Stop it, that's not helping."

"Be the hero, Tarrant, see what good it does you! What good did it do Blake! What good did it do Avon?" And I was weeping.

"God Damn Coward!", Tarrant said with all the arrogance that I had always hated in all the Alphas I'd ever known. And here I was dying with a bunch of them.

"Oh shut up Tarrant, just shut up and let me die in peace, will you?"

"What good are you? I thought you were the galaxy's best thief! Can't even get out of a stupid handcuff!"

Now that did it.

"I may have to die here, but I don't have to listen to that!" I'm angry now, so angry I'm not thinking about Avon bleeding to death in the dark, not thinking about anything but getting my hands on Tarrant. It hurts some, but I don't really notice as I fold my hands up bringing the thumbs and little fingers together so my palm isn't much wider than my wrist. Then I pull. And this part *really* hurts because you have to be willing to lose skin. Soolin did it though, until the guard put her hand back. I think he broke it too, the bastard.

My hands come free and I fall, panting to my knees.

"Now, who's the big man!" I yell. "Where are you, Tarrant!"

"Here. Here, Vila. Get me out of this!" Now the arrogance is gone, and Tarrant sounds like any other man, afraid in the dark.

"Why should I?" But I am already fingering the tools that Servalan's troopers hadn't thought to remove from my clothes.

"Because you don't want to die."

I make my way over to Tarrant and reach up for the manacles, finding the hole and inserting the pick before I say, "You were getting at me on purpose."

"I thought appealing to your professional pride might provide motivation."

I don't believe it. We've been through a horror... still going through it. I can hear Avon. He's not making much noise now, but enough to know he's still with us, in the land of pain and fear. All this, and Tarrant is trying to joke. I'll never understand Alphas.

I shake my head. "Dayna. Soolin. Call out so I can find you." I don't think about the last member of our group. No point to it, really. I just hope he's unconscious, hope he can slide into death without having to wake up again.

The girls are easier to free than Tarrant, for some reason. Maybe because I've stopped shaking. Avon is still making noise. I wish he wouldn't, but then I'm suddenly glad he is, because we're moving around now, and oh god, if anyone stepped on him, on what Servalan pulled out of him... no, I'm not going to vomit, and add to the mess we have to live in... for as long as we have to live.

"Get Avon out," Dayna says. It sounds funny, muffled and bubbly, but then she's got a broken nose.

"No. I can't." I'm terrified of going anywhere near him. "And what good would it do anyway?"

Give me the pick, then, and I'll do it! I won't have him die in chains, Vila."

"No. No. I'll do it. Just... give me a minute." It takes longer than that. Avon isn't making enough noise to be a good guide. My shoe slides on something. I almost faint before I realize it's only blood. Only blood. When I think how the sight of blood always made me sick, and here I am wading through it to something much, much worse. I have my hands out ahead of me in the dark. The others are shuffling off to the side, talking quietly, but I'm not paying any attention to them. I've got a job to do. That's all it is. A simple job. My hand touches flesh, cool, but not yet cold, and still with enough life in it to shudder.

"It's all right. It's me, Vila. I'll get you out of there in a tic, Avon. Don't worry, everything's going to be fine." Avon doesn't answer, doesn't laugh at my stupidity. He's breathing, though. And Dayna's right. Avon ought not to die in Servalan's chains. I undo the ankle chains first, hoping he'll be able to stand a bit, and take the weight off his arms. He can't, of course.

"Tarrant, come help me."

"Right," comes a voice several feet away, as far as I can tell in the dark.

"I want you to get behind Avon and hold him while I get him down."

"Right," Tarrant says again, without the slightest tremor in his voice at the thought of touching a man who's been slit like a filleted fish. I shake my head, but then I go on with it. Tarrant calls out, and I answer, and we get ourselves arranged without anything even worse happening. I get Avon down and we lay him on the floor. There's still a pulse in his throat and when I pass my hand over his face, I feel the flutter of eyelashes and a puff of breath against my palm. Poor devil.

"All right, come on, Vila." Tarrant again, brisk.

"What? Come where?"

"Out of here."

This is crazy. I know Servalan left guards outside the door, which I couldn't pick even if I could see, because it hasn't got a normal lock. I say something of the sort.

Dayna says, "I've still got a little surprise. Ow."

"What's the matter?" I ask, stupidly. Better to ask what's right.

"Cracked tooth. Wait. Let me get right over to the door before I use it."

"You can't see to throw it," Tarrant says.

"So if I miss, we die a lot sooner."

"She has a point," Soolin speaks for the first time since I let her out of the chains. She didn't even whimper when I hit her swollen hand with the pick. "Go for it, Dayna."

I don't object, either. Suicide sounds pretty good right about now. I kneel by Avon, carefully, oh, so carefully, and take off my jacket and lay it over him, over the... well, over him. It doesn't matter, I know, but I can't stand the thought of things being blown into his wound. Then I crouch over him with my arms wrapped around his head. I can hear him breathing, then there's this tremendous roar, and there's light again.

It's not much light I suppose, just a couple perma-torches left for the guards, but after the dark, it's like a nova. By the time I blink and look up, Dayna, Soolin and Tarrant have killed the four guards.

Four big, armed troopers, and they went down like straws. I start to get up, feeling absurdly relieved. I mean, I know we're dead meat any way you look at it, but once Dayna and Soolin have guns, I feel a lot safer.

Only I look down. And there's Avon, looking back up at me. There's nothing sane in those eyes, but it's not the way he used to look when we were all frustrated because nothing went right. "Up."

I can't believe it. He's talking. He waves his hands feebly, and it sinks in what he's asking. "No, no, no, Avon. You just lie there. You'll be all right." I look around frantically. I've no idea what I'm looking for, but there's a table, and that case... maybe there's another pain suppression disk! I get up and rummage through the case, having to look down to be sure I don't tread on Avon's... No, not in the case, but I find the disk on the floor. Servalan must have dropped it after she took it off Avon. I grab the disk and set it back on Avon's neck, and activate it.

The others are going without me. I hear Tarrant yell, 'Vila! Look after Avon!" and he tosses me a gun. I didn't try to catch it. Look after Avon. Does he mean I should shoot anyone who tries to hurt Avon worse? Or... Avon is looking up at me and he's trying to smile. His face is covered in blood, and it's gotten into his mouth.

It's horrible. I pick up the gun. And I aim it at Avon's heart. He's got one, you know. Just doesn't use it very often. And I hold the gun, until my arm is shaking and I have to sit down. "I'm sorry, Avon. I can't."

Avon just shuts his eyes. I sit down next to him, and I wait. I don't know what I'm waiting for, but if Avon stops breathing I can go on and do it. I would like very much to kill Servalan, but not if it means leaving Avon before he's dead. I'm glad Tarrant left one of the perma-torches.

It's a long time before I hear voices and boot steps coming down the tunnel. I glance at Avon. He's still alive. I guess there really was something special in that hypodermic the bitch-queen of Hell gave him. I get up, awkwardly because everything's numb, but I manage to fumble the gun up and aim it at the blasted-open door.

"Vila! Don't!" Tarrant ducks just fast enough to keep me from making him a whole lot shorter.

I'm relieved to see him, and Dayna beside him, but I'm also angry at them for leaving me with Avon. "What have you been doing?" I shout. I'm not even wondering why Soolin isn't there.

"Killing Servalan." Dayna smiles. She's missing a few teeth, but that's not what makes her smile so awful.

"And getting a medic for Avon," Tarrant adds. This is about the time I notice a man in a dirty white uniform leading an anti-grav litter. "He's the man who showed Servalan how to do it." Tarrant shoves the man forward. The man is nearly as white as his uniform.

"I... I... I had no choice! You can't believe I wanted to..." He sees Avon, and swallows. "Oh god. She really did it. Please. Maybe I can save him. If she didn't perforate an intestine..."

I don't believe it, but I stand outside of myself and I help load Avon onto the litter. I help cradle his guts with a clean sheet and lay them between his legs. I get almost all the way to Servalan's ship before I throw up. I think it's what Soolin was doing to Servalan's corpse that did it. I didn't know you could write with a micro-laser in flesh. Soolin's handwriting was pretty legible, considering her right hand was broken. She was annoyed that she couldn't write all Servalan's crimes on her body and had to leave off a few things.

Servalan's ship was pretty good, and she'd already got Orac and the Star-Drive and teleport and even most of the bits of Slave packed up ready to go. Along with Blake's corpse. We checked. We were very careful about it. Blake was really dead. We talked about it, while Avon was recovering from surgery, and decided on a star-orbit burial.

Blake went out in a blaze of glory. I don't know whether it was what he wanted, but that's what he got.

Tarrant got us to Avalon's base and we all more or less joined up. Avon is quieter now, and he's not giving the orders, and he's got scars...

But then, everyone does.

We're alive. And Servalan's dead. That pretty much sums it up.

And Blake... well, wherever he is, he knows we're still trying. You can't ask more than that of a man, can you?

*FIN*