Cafas was insane. Well, Allison had already been over that; she was too, and she followed.

The jump was simple enough; stupid, and the landing was a little jarring, but simple. Running was simple too; muscles and lungs, footsteps echoing from every direction in the dark. Allison could see Cafas ahead of her when they passed lights; she couldn't stop to look back, but didn't need to see Mike. Gunshots echoed too, and louder, every time they ran through light.

It was maybe the fourth pool of light when Mike succeeded. Allison screamed when the bullet hit her, and fell; she sprawled in pools made of the light, her hair, and her blood for a few seconds before managing to push herself up on her arms. Mike had only hit her leg; it was bleeding fast, and hurt too much to move, but the rest of her was still alive. "CJ!" She struggled to get the backpack off, and shoved it at him. "Here. Run! I can delay him, just go."

It wasn't the gunshots that caught his attention, he was starting to get used to them. No, it was the sound she made as the bullet struck her. He tried to stop, slid a few feet, and looked back. There on the ground, surrounded by a pool of light, was Allison. Blood was spreading around her alarmingly quickly.

"CJ!"

"ALLI!"

What was she doing? Before he had time to think too hard about it his feet were carrying him back to her. Bullets impacted around him still. Mike never had been much of a hot shot.

"Here. Run! I can delay him, just go."

He fell to his knees and slid over to her, thankful at once that adrenaline stopped the whole pain thing from being too bad.

"I'm not leaving you! Come on! Live or die, we're in this together!"

He slid his arms under hers and half carried, half dragged her toward the nearest door. Mike was walking now, laughing as he reloaded.

"You know CJ, you always were stupid. I told you the girl would be the end of you."

"Honour and stupidity are vastly different concepts Mike!"

Again, Mike laughed. Cafas continued to the door. He prayed it was open.

"Honour CJ? Honour is a farce. Loyalty is just a weakness, easy to exploit."

"No Mike, your shooting is a farce. Honour is a quality more valuable than gold. More valuable than this stupid backpack and everything in it!"

He yanked the door. It opened. Cafas pulled Allison in. He shut the door as they went in. The room they were in was dark. He didn't have time to look for the light switch.

"I'm sorry Alli. I'm sorry I got you into this. Just hold on. I'll get you out of here."

He said it, but he didn't know that he could live up to the promise. He felt along the wall as Mike's laughter drew nearer outside the door. Too late, Cafas realised the room they were in had no other exit. A glorified maintenance storage room. Dead end.

The latch rattled.

"What? Yes you are, go!" Allison did her best to shove Cafas away, and failed. She let him carry her, if only because fighting would slow him down more and, apparently, not actually get him to leave. She held onto the backpack, since it wasn't likely to matter anyway, and tried to blink the tears out of her eyes.

That did not stop her from jabbing Cafas's shoulder with her finger when he wasted breath on making snarky comments at Mike. "This is not the time for that!" It was a good time to try and get the pain out of her voice. She failed, though. "And it is not worth more than your life!"

Not that convincing him would help any, at this point. The door shut behind him, and Allison held on while he looked for a light switch. "Quit apologizing, I'm an adult. We both got ourselves in." Which did not mean Allison was going to let Cafas die, if she had any say in it. She might not; the room was a dead end. She could still try, though. Allison dropped the backpack and leaned closer to Cafas, pulling on his hair to make sure he listened. "Get me over to the door, CJ. And put me down." Having her jump--or fall--on him as soon as he opened the door was probably not something Mike expected. If they were lucky, it would distract him long enough for Cafas to run.

Cafas didn't bother to argue. He had no idea what she was up to, but he assumed the last place Mike would look would be directly beside the door. The closer she was to danger, the farther she was from harm. Or something like that. Cafas propped Alli up next to the door and walked back into the room. He took the bag while he was out it. He'd felt something promising. A metal plate in the floor. Cafas lifted it and dropped the bag under it. He had a feeling it wasn't meant to be loose.

Then he placed himself, as near as he could tell, right in front of the door.

Outside the door, there was a commotion. Someone yelling. Cafas couldn't tell if it was Mike. A train took the opportunity to tear by, drowning out most sound. Suddenly the door burst open in a flurry of gunfire. Cafas grit his teeth and closed his eyes. Nothing happened. When he opened them blood was pooling out around Mike's slumped over body. He couldn't tell if he was still alive.

He didn't care. Cafas ran over to Allison and grabbed her. "Come on, maybe we can make it to the next service tunnel!" He picked her up in his arms and took two steps out the door. Then he stopped. The detective who had seen them was standing a few yards up the tunnel, the next pool of light over. He and his back up had guns leveled at them.

"End of the line. Put the girl down and get on your knees."

Cafas gently put Alli down. Then, with his hands behind his head, knelt down.

"Don't move."

Allison leaned against the wall, hands splayed on it to try and hold herself in place, and tried not to gasp in pain. She managed somehow, even though she was still crying. She wanted to try to wipe the tears away, but her hands were occupied with the wall; she wasn't sure she could move and still stay on her feet.

She could hear Mike through the door, and other things; she was spending too much brain power on staying upright to bother with the other things, and as soon as the door opened she pushed herself into it as fast as she could.

It worked, sort of. She found herself laying on Mike. Or his body; he was still gasping, but not going to survive a shot in his throat. He blurred, and she realized she was crying on him. How ironic.

And then Cafas was there. She did gasp as he picked her up, from surprise as much as pain. It took a second to sort out that something was wrong, though she still hadn't figured out what. She grabbed his shoulders and clung. "Wait, CJ--"

Oh. That was what; Mike had to have been shot by someone. Allison stared at the detectives with wide eyes, and let herself start crying once Cafas set her down.

~~~

Allison kept her face carefully pleased as the show ended, and leaned over to Cafas. She kept her voice even more carefully lowered so no one else could hear. "Why do I spend so much time crying?"

Cafas wasn't quite on par with Allison, in terms of acting talent. Faking pleasure at the show though, he could do that. It wasn't that it was bad. It was how cliched it was. How bland. It was to television scripting what boiled rice was to Chinese food. "You can thank the patriarchy for that one." He didn't shift his gaze off the credits, though he took in none of it.

Well, it's money I suppose.

This was far better than Dusk for his image too, though he had some idea that CS might not be amazingly happy that an X-man was playing criminals on television shows. Then again, maybe he wouldn't watch it.

"So, what do you think?"

Cafas looked at the producer for the show, fixing a smile to his face. "Great! Really dramatic ending, lots of action, what more could you ask for?" Except for some less cheesy dialogue and perhaps some resolution as to what happened to the backpack and its contents. They'd made such an effort to make sure everyone knew how pure their motives were. Did it go to the orphanage they grew up in, did the detectives find it? Seriously, lets not leave that plot thread just waggling around, or the whole thing might unravel.

Cafas turned to smile at Allison. It was still the same one he'd had for the producer. "Don't you think? Really cool chase, right?" Cafas winked, fairly certain his face was hidden from everyone except Allison. The lights in the room slowly faded on as an intern figured out the show was over.

Patriarchy. Hmph. Allison had a few opinions on that, but no time to share them in. The producer probably wouldn't appreciate the criticism, and there wasn't time to fix it anyway. Which wouldn't stop Allison from complaining, but she'd at least wait until no one could hear her who would be overly offended by it.

In the meantime, she smiled while Cafas answered, then leaned forward for her own. The producer had been absolutely convinced the whole time they'd worked on this that Allison was just as naively cheerful as Rashell was, and Allison had yet to bother correcting him. She pretended she didn't see Cafas's wink. "Oh yeah, that was so much fun to film! I'd love to be able to do that for real." Apart from the jumping off of windows thing, she already could, but the window had been more fun anyway. "It'd be awesome to do that again sometime."

The producer smiled benevolently down at her, despite the fact that he wasn't actually above her at the moment. "Well, we'll see how the ratings are. If people like the characters we might be able to invite you back sometime."

Allison resisted the urge to stick her tongue out at him, and focused on looking happy. Honestly.

Cafas held down a chuckle. They'd been working together long enough for him to recognise Allison in character. The producer, however, missed it entirely. He seemed like he thought his work was a masterpiece. Of course, this was likely the case. Television just didn't have the budget to hire people with any form of realism of true talent. Except maybe HBO. They weren't on HBO however.

What an jackass.

"Well, if the ratings demand it, we'd love to be back, everyone needs the cool recurring villains." especially when they were specifically written to be more popular than the main characters. Cafas smiled slightly wider and turned to Allison.

"Well we'd better be off I suppose, lots to do today. Publicists are killing us, though I suppose you know all about that." Movie star gratifying the TV producer, who clearly did not need anyone to inflate his ego any further.

Cafas got up and moved to the door, opening it and waiting for Allison to walk through before him. "Come on, we've got that photo shoot in about twenty minutes, and that's over the Hudson from here." Tell ALL the lies to avoid spending any more time with this slightly sleazy TV guy that necessary.

Condescending prick, talking down to us.

"They are." Allison pouted, and collapsed dramatically against Cafas's side. She heard a snicker from the direction of the interns, which was quickly suppressed. "There's always somewhere to go, I don't know how anyone can keep up with it! I barely even have time to put on makeup."

Seeing whether the producer remembered that most of her makeup was actually ink was probably not a good idea. Even if he did, though, she could probably convince him that that took too long, or that she spent a lot of time obsessing over the makeup she did still wear. Him realizing that she was mocking him and seeing how much he'd fall for... probably wouldn't happen. She probably still shouldn't take the risk, though. Oh well. "It's so fun though, so many people know me now, and they keep taking pictures, even when I'm not acting, it's wonderful!"

Allison skipped--really, fully skipped--through the door Cafas held, waited for him to walk through too, and hung on his arm. As soon as the door shut and they were out of sight she let go, and mimed vomiting. Delicately, of course.

Cafas shut the door and dropped the act almost instantly. Allison beat him to it. "Yeah, bit cliched but with any luck it'll open up a wider range of roles." Well, for him. Allison was kind of still the same character, just less clumsy. Cafas looked up and down the corridor. Noone else. "So... What now? I mean, we do have a photo shoot later. Coffee? That always goes well."

Yup, nothing bad could ever come of coffee.

He began walking towards the stairs. There was an elevator, but he saw no point in that. Waiting for it, getting in, waiting for it to go to every floor between that and yours that called it. The stairs were just faster, if a little more work. Plus far less awkward, you never had to stand next to someone for too long on the stairs, and if by chance you did have that happen, you could increase your pace. Stairs were great.

"Of course we could just go for a ride or something. Might be nice to avoid the cameras for a while. You'd think I'd be used to it by now, but I'm really not." He really did not like the constant cameras. He might have to talk to CS or Shin about keeping paparazzi out of his way when he was doing the whole crime stopping thing.