Nightmares.

Jay woke with a start.

He sat up on the tattered sofa on which he had slept, in a cold sweat and rubbed his temples.

He checked the time. He'd managed a full twenty minutes of sleep. His dream however, felt so much longer. It was so vivid, and so real that he would have sworn he was living through it all over again. The day his life changed. He'd seen it all during his short sleep, the wall of flames that engulfed the ship. The flaming hull of the crippled Blue Dwarf adrift in space. The hundreds of bodies floating in the blackness.

The Hymenoptera attack on the Blue Dwarf (amongst others) was the single most devastating moment of Jay Chryslers life. He lost his second wife, his unborn child, his sister (for the third time). He'd lost friends and co-workers. And it was all under his watch.

That single moment had haunted Jay for the past six centuries, and now – he had discovered something that made him sick. The woman he had been falling in love with over the past few months was responsible for it all.

“Rough night?” Katrina said from the door. She and Max had been sleeping on the bed in the next room, but she'd been unable to sleep either.

Jay looked awful. “You could say that...” he replied woozily. He clutched his forehead. “Nightmares again. And this headache is killing...”

“Yeah...about that...” Katrina said “You really ought to talk to Phi...you have no idea what they stuck you with back at HQ...”

“It'll be fine...it's probably just a flu jab or something...”

“Why would they give you a flu jab?”

“To mess with my head...just like she's been doing?”

“Cassandra?”

“Right...”

Katrina took a seat next to her husband, they almost felt like strangers these days, but they were getting to know each other again slowly. Jay had noted that her tough demeanour had already started to vanish, and she'd started wearing make-up again. She was already much 'girlier' than she was just yesterday, more like the Katrina he remembered than the one who hunted him down for decades. Her shields she'd built up over all this time hating him finally dropping.

“You're not a killer Jay...don't let her turn you into one. You're one of the good guys...remember that...”

“It's no less than she deserves...”

“No. She doesn't deserve it.....”

“She's a clone of the most dangerous woman who has ever existed...you know as well as I do what Brittany's done in the years after we 'died'. And all this time...all these centuries...it was HER all along!”

“I know...you don't think I hate Brittany too? After what she did to Max, and the way she made me hate you? Smeg, she probably only did that to Cass could get into your pants – I'm just saying, don't let yourself cross that line...you'll never be able to go back once you do...”

Jay paused a moment. Kat was right.

“Fine..” he said “But the moment Solvay unlocks that door in the morning, I'm putting her in a Blue Midget and sending her as far away from her as possible...we don't know what she's capable of. I'm not going to risk letting her hurt you, or Max, or anyone....not even Justin!”

He slumped back on the sofa and closed his eyes.

“Well...maybe Justin...”