CASUALTIES OF THE GRAND PLAN  by Jayne Leitch
C. 2001

The tavern was comfortably smoky.  There was a general hint  of tobacco in the air, but
the scent mingled with the earthy odour of the peat moss fire that blackened the flagstone
fireplace, and wasn't overpowering.  There was light, but it wasn't obtrusive; the patrons
could see each other well enough to talk, but the shadows obscured any identifying
features well enough that complete anonymity was assured.

The patrons numbered precisely two.  They sat in large, wingbacked chairs that faced the
fire, not oblivious to the emptiness of the room behind them, but not adverse to it, either.
Each held a stein of beer, dark caramel in the flickering firelight, from which each
occasionally drank, but beyond that they were completely different.

Well, mostly...

They'd sat in silence for a time, staring into the fire, enjoying the heat it radiated.  They
hadn't arrived together; in fact, when the smaller man had entered and taken his seat, he'd
noticed his companion seemed well and truly settled in, as if he'd been in his chair for
quite some time.  Beyond a brief glance in his direction, the other man hadn't paid any
attention to the company, and soon both were sitting silently, consumed in their own
thoughts.

It was therefore a little surprising to hear the words uttered by the first man, apropos of
nothing:  "He was a vampire, you know that?  And he thought I didn't know."

The new arrival looked up from the fire, his eyebrows raised.  "Who?"

"Knight.  My partner."  The first man shook his head a little, wryly.  "I knew it, too; not
from the beginning, but over the years--I figured it out.  Detective Don Schanke was a lot
smarter than he looked."

The second man glanced his companion over, and decided not to argue.  "You were a
detective?"

The other man--Don--nodded.  "Metro Toronto Police, Homicide.  Partnered for two
years with Detective Nick Knight, he of the macrobiotic diet and wierd allergies.  I just
can't believe I didn't put it all together sooner than I did."  He paused, then turned a
careful eye to his companion.  "I guess vampires don't phase you much."

"That they don't."  The other man let out a pensive sigh, then offered his hand.  "Alan
Francis Doyle.  Lately of Angel Investigations; more recently, just late.  Call me Doyle."

"Call me Schanke."  The two men shook hands, then settled back into their respective
chairs.  "So how do you like being dead, Doyle?"  Schanke asked, a twist of dry humour
evident behind the hearty tone of his voice.  "Is it everything you expected?"

Doyle snorted.  "I'm Irish, man," he answered, his tone deceptively light.  "If I expected
anything like what I was taught, I'd be traipsing the green hills of home right now.
Although this isn't bad," he amended quickly, glancing around him at the decor.  "Very
comfortable."  He turned his eyes back to Schanke.  "And you?  You look fairly settled
in."

"I should.  I've been here almost four years."  Reaching out for his beer stein, the
ex-detective continued, "Plane bombing.  You?"

"Doomsday device.  Four *years*?"

"Yeah."  Noticing the dismayed look that came across Doyle's face, Schanke hurriedly
continued, "Oh, don't worry, you don't feel the time passing.  It's like...you lose track of it,
but you can always find out how long it's been for the folks back home."  There was a
twinge of wistfulness in his voice, but he cleared his throat and got back on topic.  "What
kind of doomsday device?"

Doyle waved a hand dismissively.  "Nothing as complicated as it sounds.  More like a big
blue lantern thing that roasts anything with human parts until there's nothing left but
briquette.  I was being heroic."

Schanke tilted his head at the bitterness in the younger man's tone.  "What do you mean,
anything with human parts?  PETA getting high-tech?"

This elicited a snort of laughter.  "I thought you said you knew about demons."  At
Schanke's puzzled look, Doyle raised his eyebrows.  "Or...maybe just the vampire bits,
eh?"

"What, you're saying there's things other than vampires I should have been believing in?"
Schanke let out a loud sigh.  "And they say you can't learn anything once you're dead.
There's demons, too?"

"You're sitting with one."  Deciding to go for effect rather than eloquence, Doyle took a
deep breath and let go.

Schanke's eyes widened, and he started back in his chair.  "Jesus..." he exclaimed, staring
at the suddenly blue and spiky man beside him.  "Okay, enough, I get it.  I believe in
demons."

Tilting his head in agreement, Doyle reined in his appearance and reverted face.  "Now,
if I'd been full Brakken demon, I wouldn't be sitting here with you," he said
conversationally, "because of that demon bug zapper thing only killing anything with
humanity.  But I'm half-human, so I went poof."

"Half human."  Schanke let out a low whistle, then shook his head.  "Funny what happens
when people love each other."

"You're tellin' me."

The bitterness was back; Schanke chose to ignore it.  "If Knight hadn't been so worried
about publicity, you'd be sitting here all by your lonesome," he commented, carefully
studying the foam ring around his beer stein.  "He'd have gotten on that plane, and
probably walked away with nothing worse than a dismembered hand or something.  And
a load more guilt."

Doyle gave him a speculative glance.  "What, yours was all tortured and angsty, too?"

Schanke nodded.  "But I didn't know it 'til I got here.  Not for sure; I mean I knew, but not
in the sense of actually *knowing*.  You know?"

"You couldn't miss it with Angel--my vampire," Doyle commented.  "Wore his guilty
conscience like a badge of honour.  'Look at me, I killed a bunch of people in really nasty
ways, but now I feel bad about it and want to repay society for my sins'.  Gave him that
whole mysterious, tormented good guy aura, lucky bastard."

"I know what you mean.  There wasn't a week go by when Nick didn't have some lovely
lady batting her body parts in his direction."  Schanke shook his head ruefully.  "Why do
the ladies always fall for the bad boys, huh?  Doesn't exactly create a level playing field
for the rest of us."

"Tell me about it."  A wistful note entered Doyle's voice, and both men paused for a
pensive swallow of beer.  "So this Knight fellow kept a low profile?"  he asked after
taking a moment to appreciate the alcohol.  "Stayed in the closet, as it were?"

Schanke snorted.  "Oh, yeah.  Went to great pains to keep his darker side hidden; lots of
stories about why he couldn't eat souvlaki, why he couldn't be on day shift, why he had
blood in his refrigerator.  And if anybody got close to figuring anything out, saw
something they weren't supposed to--he had this whammy trick.  Hypnosis, or
something."

"Hypnosis?"  His eyebrows rose in surprise, and Doyle offered, "He must've been a
powerful one.  D'you know how old he was?"

Schanke shrugged, and replied offhand, "About eight hundred years, give or take."

Doyle's eyes bulged.  "Eight *hundred*?!"  At the other man's solemn nod, he gave a low
whistle.  "Oh, man.  Angel's only just past *two* hundred.  I'd hate to see the angst load
when he reaches his first millennium."

The older man set his stein on a low table and folded his hands across his belly.  "And
there I was, thinking he was younger than me.  I felt like such a chump when I realized--"
He broke off, and Doyle looked away to give him a moment to gather his thoughts.
When Schanke spoke again, his voice was calm, and thoughtfully level.  "I did know it,
you know?"  His hooded eyes searched the glow from the fireplace.  "He thought he had
me fooled--for a while he did, because I was a pretty self-absorbed goomba while I was
alive, and anything I couldn't explain about my partner I tended to forget in a hurry.  I
made myself forget it, because stuff like him didn't fit in with stuff like Myra and Jenny.
I didn't want it to."

He fell silent, but Doyle prompted, "Myra and Jenny...?"

"My wife and daughter."  There was a longing tinge to Schanke's voice as he answered,
but it had disappeared by the time he continued.  "All those handy little delusions go poof
when you die, though.  Hell, even just before; the plane blew up, but I can remember, in
that instant before I went up in flames, some part of my brain told me, 'Knight should be
here.  This wouldn't make a dent in him.'  And for once in my life, I let myself know
*why*."

The two men sat in silence for a long moment--then Doyle sighed and slumped back in
his chair, his hand toying idly with his beer.  "It is a hell of a wakeup call," he agreed.
"Not just the dyin', either, but the knowin' that you're *gonna* die.  Cleared things right
up for me, just the knowin'."

Schanke glanced at him curiously.  "I guess your actual moment wouldn't be as
important, seeing as, you know--"

"Practically undead already?"  Waving off the other man's discomfort, Doyle shook his
head.  "No, don't worry about it.  If we're comparing flashes of realization, mine was the
time before I died.  The actual moment was just--excruciatingly painful."

"Death from demon bug zapper sounds it."

"Doesn't even begin to describe it."  Doyle's face clouded, and he took a thoughtful
swallow of drink.  "No, it was right before; it was me, Angel, and...and the most beautiful
woman in the world, Cordelia.  We were trapped by the zapper, and one of us was gonna
have to die to let the other two, not to mention the population of a quarter-mile square of
Los Angeles, live--and I just *knew* that Angel was takin' it into his thick skull to be all
heroic and save the day, and fry himself to a crisp while he was at it."  His eyes grew
troubled, and Doyle smiled wistfully.  "The thing was, we were in that jam because of
me, because of what I was supposed to be atoning for.  I'd messed up really badly back
when I first found out about the demon thing, which was why I'd been sent to help Angel;
The Powers That Be have that kind of sense of humour."

He lapsed into silence, and Schanke watched as his smile faded to be replaced by a kind
of knowing puzzlement.  When he spoke again, he sounded as if he was speaking to
himself:  "What they thought I'd end up doing, I have no idea.  I'm not sure that I played
along the way I was supposed to..."

When he fell quiet a second time, Schanke cleared his throat respectfully, then pretended
he wasn't dying--figuratively--of curiosity.  "'The Powers That Be'?"

Doyle blinked, then seemed to focus on the other man once more.  "Right!  Sorry.  Flash
buggers in charge of everything; managin' the forces in the fight against evil, playin' with
fate and destiny 'til everybody's where they're supposed to be--makin' heroes."  With an
exaggerated indication of himself, he continued, "I wasn't supposed to *be* a hero, see.  I
was only supposed to help Angel take care of that end of things; all I did was have
incredibly painful premonitions of where the Big Bad was about to make an appearance,
after which he would ride off into the night to save the innocents, all romantic-like.  All I
had was the know-how; he had the dark, brooding eyes and the billowy-coat walk."

Schanke snapped his fingers.  "Billowy-coat walk.  Knight was a pro at that one."

"All the heroes are.  Or, they're supposed to be, anyway."  Doyle snorted.  "And then
there's us, the faithful companions who aren't good enough to be actual heroes, who are
only in the world to do the gruntwork so the other guys can look good."

The ex-detective settled back in his chair, a pensive expression on his face.  "I don't know
about that," he mused slowly, drawing a curious look from his companion.  "I mean, I
helped Nick out plenty of times only to have to stand back and watch while he saved the
day and got all the credit, but...I hauled my weight, too.  I made some good arrests all on
my own."

"Yeah, but it's different for you."  Doyle rested his elbows on the armrests of his chair,
then leaned forward and began gesturing with his hands as he spoke.  "You were police
officers; you were dealin' with normal bad guys who couldn't fight back with fangs or
slime or whatnot.  They were human, so humans could deal with 'em.

"Whereas the bad guys Angel and Cordy and me were fightin'--"  Doyle paused for a
second, his hands freezing in mid-gesture while he gathered his thoughts.  "Those bad
guys, they were demons, or had magical powers or somethin'.  Humans *can't* fight guys
like them, 'cause the human's always gonna end up dead."

Furrowing his brow, Schanke resettled himself in his chair.  "So what was the problem?
You weren't human, either."

His companion's answering glare made the ex-detective glance hurriedly into his beer.

A long, awkward moment of silence passed--then Doyle sighed.  "No, you're right.  I'm
not--I *wasn't* human.  But I was human enough, and that's what got me killed.  That's
why I couldn't be the Good Guy the way Angel is, or the way your Nick Knight was."

Still gazing down into the depths of his ale, Schanke shrugged.  "I wouldn't say Nick was
that kind of good guy..."

"I just--I don't understand why I had to be a part of them at all!"  His feet shuffled
anxiously on the polished hardwood for a moment, then Doyle propelled himself out of
his chair and began pacing in front of the fire.  "Angel had the weapons, and the strength,
and that brooding t'ing, and Cordelia had the looks, and the attitude, and the most
stubbornly gorgeous way of arguing with anything I said, but what did Doyle have?  I had
the visions, sure, but they weren't anything special--"  He broke off, his face clouding.
"They were just a damn curse.  A punishment for how I'd behaved, and now--"

Schanke blinked at the sudden chilly silence and slowly turned his eyes up to watch his
companion.  "And now...?"

The sound of his voice seemed to startle to Irishman; he jerked involuntarily, then
relaxed and rested an arm across the mantle above the fireplace, leaning against the prop
almost casually.  "And now Cordelia has 'em.  Now she's sufferin' *for* me.  Because I
found a way to get out of it."

Schanke's brow furrowed as he replayed their conversation in his head.  "I thought you
died *saving* everybody," he said finally, watching as Doyle drummed his fingers
against the top of the mantle.  "I wouldn't call that 'getting out of it'.  You sacrificed your
whole life to make sure other people could live--"

"Yeah, that's what I thought I was doin', too, at the time."  Still leaning against the
mantle, Doyle shook his head.  "It was one of those time's-runnin'-out things, you know?
Somebody had to do somethin', or everybody was gonna end up ashes on the floor.  I
remember feelin' that ugly black pit you get in your stomach when you know you have
two options and none you like.  I remember lookin' over at Cordelia and seein' this
beautiful, brilliant girl who'd just made me feel, for once in my life, that the demon part
of me might not be such a bad t'ing after all--an' I remember thinkin' that the world would
be wasting a hell of a person if she died right then, before bein' allowed to make her
mark.  And then I remember lookin' at Angel and realizing that he was about to take
himself out of the Powers' grand plan, and I remember bein' *sure* that he wasn't
supposed to die this early in the game--"

He broke off, his eyes going wide, his face draining of colour.  Schanke froze in his chair.
"What?"

As suddenly as he'd paled, Doyle's cheeks flushed a hot red.  "Oh, yeah," he muttered,
pushing himself off the mantle with enough force to shake the poker that lay on top of it.
He stood stick-straight, and Schanke saw his hands curl into white-knuckled fists at his
sides.  "I get it.  I'm not supposed to, but I *get* it.  Bastards!"  In a sudden flurry of
motion, he grabbed his beer stein, spun to face the fire, and hurled the mug against the
flagstones, the glazed ceramic shattering while the dregs of his beer splashed onto the
fire, making it flare up briefly at one end of a log.

After a moment, Schanke unfroze.  His eyes remained fixed on the smoking log, but his
hand relaxed from its death grip on his own flagon, then reached out and set it down
beside him.  "I did that once," he said finally, his tone studiously aloof.  "About a year
after I got here, I checked up on Knight and found out that he'd screwed up his life--and I
mean *really* screwed--without me there to keep him on the straight-and-narrow.  If you
wait a few minutes, someone'll bring you a new one."

"I don't want a new one!"  Doyle turned from where he'd been staring at his broken stein
and fixed his angry, betrayed gaze on his seated companion.  "You don't understand--I
figured out why *I* had to be with Angel.  Well," he amended quickly, a spark of dark
humour blazing briefly in his eyes, "it probably didn't have to be *me*.  Any poor old
cowardly bastard who'd lit'rally die for a chance to play hero probably would've done."
He took a deep breath, and in the silence Schanke noted that the angrier Doyle got, the
stronger his accent became.  "No, I was convenient.  I was *there*.  After I screwed up,
they gave me the visions so I'd t'ink I had some kind of big destiny in store, or somethin',
so I wouldn't just pack it in and drink myself into a permanent stupor.  An' they sent me
to Angel so I could feel like I was doin' somethin' *about* the damn visions, so I wouldn't
pack *them* in an' just kill meself.  An' they let me help Angel out a bit, gave me a
chance to puff meself up a bit, gave me a chance to hang about the sidelines and feel like
I was important, like I *mattered*.  An' then, when I'd helped us all into a situation where
somebody obviously had to die--when it was obvious that *Angel*, bein' the big hero,
had to sacrifice hi'self all noble-like for the sake o' humanity--the bastards had set it all
up so I'd feel like it was *my* place to die, *my* turn to be the Chosen One, *my*
bloody life that was supposed to be heroically sacrificed!"

As Doyle paused for breath, Schanke steeled himself for the fury he was risking and
asked, "Who?"

"The damned Powers That Be!"  As if naming them had taken it all out of him, Doyle
practically fell backwards into his chair, his arms dangling limply over the arm rests, his
fingers brushing knuckles on the floor.  He was silent for a long moment, and when he
spoke again he sounded much calmer--icily so.  "It wasn't the real hero's time to die, you
see," he explained slowly.  "It wasn't Angel's time to die, because the Powers have him in
a much bigger, much more important grand scheme.  An' it wasn't Cordelia's time to die,
because she's workin' on her own destiny--although now, thanks to my stupid idea that
kissing her before I died would be all tragic an' romantic an' heroic, she's got those
damned migranes to deal with instead of bein' able to focus on her own life."  He paused
for breath, but didn't notice the puzzled look that came across Schanke's face at that
information.  "But Doyle, good old Doyle, who'd already lived and loved and lost and
learned--he was expendable.  Better the sidekick than the star of the show, right?"

Schanke didn't say anything for a long moment.  In the silence, a slight, dark-haired
woman with long earrings dangling against her pale throat brought a full, frothy stein and
set it down on the table beside Doyle's chair.  She flashed both men a knowing smile
before disappearing into the shadows.

"Knight and I--I didn't think there was anything special about us," Schanke began
hesitantly, as if unsure whether Doyle was going to interrupt for another tirade.  When his
companion simply slouched down further into his chair, the detective's speech became a
little more forceful.  "When we were first partnered up, he barely tolerated me, and I
thought he was a stuffy, too-serious kid with a chip on his shoulder the size of Bora-Bora.
Somewhere down the line, though...he started to like me, and I started to like him.  You
know how it is; you get to know somebody, you start thinking the wierd quirks you made
fun of before you got close are actually 'special' and 'interesting'.  As annoying as it
sometimes was to have to admit to not knowing how Knight could possibly have gotten
to the perp faster than anybody else, or to have to explain away the bottles of blood he
kept in the fridge, or the sunbed he had even though he said he was allergic to
daylight...when we were partners, we solved crimes.  We caught the bad guys, we saved
lives, we made Partners of the Month.  We *liked* each other.

"When I died--" Schanke squirmed a little in his chair before continuing, "it hit Nick
*hard*.  Harder than I ever expected it would.  Sure, we'd been friends--he'd even
tolerated me staying at his loft once when Myra and I were on the skids--but had we
actually been friendly enough for my death to have kicked off such a guilt trip?  It had
been his arrest, but he'd insisted that I take the glory and the free plane ride to 'deliver the
criminal to justice'.  And when I died, I couldn't understand why his not being on that
plane instead of me made him damn near suicidal.  I didn't get it for a long time, but
eventually I figured it out--he was always so willing to punish himself for all the evil he'd
committed over his lifetime that he would've preferred his death to *anyone* else's...but
no matter how guilty my death made him feel, it had to be me.  It hadn't been his time to
die."

The echo of his own words made Doyle glance over for a second, but his expression
remained frozen and bitter.  "Were you mad?"

Schanke snorted.  "Hell, yeah!  Especially when I saw what it was Nick had apparently
been destined to live for: in the year after I died he was demonically possessed, got shot
in the head and had amnesia, had to face the fact that his old vampire girlfriend had
managed to become human again--did I tell you that Nick and the local coroner, Natalie,
were trying to find a medical way to make him human again?"

This succeeded in getting another reaction from Doyle, who glanced over for a second
before shaking his head.  "I didn't think you could do that scientifically.  I mean, I know a
witch who knew this shaman whose cousin used to make these spells..."

Schanke blinked, his train of thought momentarily hijacked.  "But it is possible
somehow?"

The younger man shrugged in what Schanke interpreted as a purposely noncommittal
way.  "I've heard stories."

"Oh."  After another quick mental shake, the older man got back on topic.  "Well, Nick
and Nat never had any real luck in making the change, but Nick's old girlfriend Janette
managed it completely by accident.  Nick had to face the fact that if he tried to make it
happen the way she had, he'd probably end up killing Natalie.  Long story," he added with
a wave of his hand at Doyle's raised eyebrow.  "Anyway, where was I?  Oh, right--more
Knight Torture.  He had to kill another old vampire girlfriend, he almost died from some
kind of vampire version of AIDS, he was almost beaten to death by a vampire brat, he
made a mistake that caused his new partner--my replacement--to be shot and killed...and
he ended up eating Natalie.  She'd practically begged him to--it had either been that or
he'd leave her behind and relocate to somewhere she'd never find him--and she'd made
him promise that he wouldn't take enough to hurt her...but Nick was never the strongest
guy in the world, mortal temptationally speaking, and he almost killed her.  He thought
she was dead, and he was willing to die because he was convinced it was all his fault..."

Schanke trailed off, then took a deep breath and continued.  "All the while, I was sitting
up here watching him slide further and further into the dark and thinking, This is what I
died for?  *This* is why he had to keep on living?"

"Exactly!"  Pulling himself abruptly upright in his chair, Doyle glared into the fire as one
of the logs crumbled into red-hot ash.  "Angel's had two centuries.  Your Nick Knight had
*eight*.  I just barely got the best part--and that term is used very loosely, believe me--of
twenty-five *years*!  Life was just startin' to make sense again, I had a job, I had
friends--good friends--who actually cared about me, I had a dinner date with the girl of
my dreams loomin' up on the horizon, I had a *purpose*--"  He broke off, his mouth
twisting into a bitter frown.  "I had a purpose.  I *thought* my purpose was to help
people, to suffer those damn migranes so the world could be a better place.  Turns out my
*real* purpose was to be available for Death Duty in case nobody was ready to part with
Mr Depths-of-the-Soul when the time came."

"It hurts."  Schanke arched an eyebrow at the look Doyle sent him.  "Believe me, I know
the feeling.  I've been there, when I saw the mess Nick was making of his life--and
Natalie's, and Tracy's, and Janette's, hell even Lacroix, his sire's.  Here I'd gone and
*died* when it really should've been him on that plane, and he was ruining the chance I'd
given him.  It hurt a *lot*...until I figured something out."

"Oh?"  Doyle sounded angry, but he kept his temper in check.  "And what was that?"

There was a long moment of silence as Schanke paused for a quick swallow of beer and a
pensive gaze in his companion's direction.  Then he set his stein back on his table, folded
his hands across his rounded belly, and took a deep breath.  "I figured out that if Nick had
died instead of me, he wouldn't have had a prayer.  He might've had eight centuries' more
life experience than me, but there was a *lot* he didn't know, or didn't understand, or had
made himself forget.  Stuff like why people do the things they do, how they react to
goodness and badness--evil, whatever--who, in the whole enchilada, he really is.  If he'd
died when I did, he'd have been lost because he didn't *know* what he needed to
to...well, to die peacefully."

Doyle was giving him a very skeptical look.  "And you did."

Schanke rolled his eyes.  "I hated philosophy talk when I was alive.  Never bothered with
it.  Now I remember why.  Maybe that was a bad way to put it; I didn't know exactly that
stuff the instant I died, and I still don't think I've got even half of it figured out.  But when
I died, I was *ready* to know it.  That moment when the plane blew up and I let myself
figure out what Nick really was, that was the moment that I let myself open up to all the
possibilities of this crazy little thing called life.  Somehow, I don't think that Nick
would've been able to have an epiphany like that, and I think *that's* why it had to be me
who died."  His mouth curved into a weak smile.  "Hell, I could be so off base with this
that I'm buying a chili dog across the street.  But I've had four years to think it all over,
and I think that this makes as much sense as anything else I could come up with..."  He
trailed off for a second, watching Doyle closely.  Then--"If these Powers you keep talking
about have as much to do with it as you say they do, I hope they let up a bit on my
ex-partner.  I like to check up on him every once in a while, and he's still not dead, so
either there's a bigger plan in the works that he *has* to be alive for, or he's just a really,
*really* slow learner.  Either way, though...it'd be nice to see him happy for a while."

Doyle digested this in silence, leaning back into the softness of his chair as he turned
again to stare into the flickering fire.  When he finally spoke, it was slowly and quietly,
as if he was trying not to interrupt his line of thought.  "So what you're sayin' is, you think
maybe Angel lived because he still had some major issues to work out?  And maybe I
died because I was done with that world's issues and had to move on to new and different
ones in the afterlife?"

The detective raised a bemused eyebrow.  "Something like that."

"Or, taken a little bit differently..." The younger man didn't move a muscle, but his voice
grew more animated as he continued, "...You could be sayin' that you and I were allowed
to die because the Powers think we're not as important to their grand plan as Knight and
Angel are."

Schanke's brow lowered again, and he gave a bit of a nervous chuckle.  "Well, maybe not
exactly--"  He broke off suddenly, and Doyle turned his head and watched his
companion's face search for an appropriate expression.  When it had settled on something
that looked like surprised enlightenment, he said, "Well I'll be damned."

Doyle found himself smiling.  "Makes you feel all cozy and insignificant, eh?"

"It really does!"  Flustered, Schanke was blushing a nice tomato red; he grabbed at his
stein and took a long draught to try to hide it, then chuckled a little at his own actions.
"Man oh man.  I'd never thought about it that way.  I mean, I'd thought about the idea that
maybe I was somehow less important than Knight, but...man oh man oh man."

"I knew I was a pawn of the Powers."  Doyle had turned back to watch the fire, and the
orange glow reflected off his eyes as he spoke.  "I knew it was *them* who ran my life,
who decided my plans on Friday nights, but...this is just...makes me feel..."  He paused
for a second, then finished quite emphatically, "Pointless.  Like *nothin'* I ever did was
really me, like it was all a big scam to make me think there was such a thing as free will
in the world.  Instead, I find out that, most likely, nothin' meant anythin', it was all
destined from the start, it was all part of some grand plan.  Fate, or something.  It's...well,
it's damn annoyin'."

Schanke, who by this point was also staring at the fire, raised his stein in salute.  "I hear
you, brother."

"Couldn't they have let us know this stuff *before* we died?"

They sat for a while not talking, just watching the fire and pondering the meaning, if any,
of their lives and deaths.  At one point, the dark-haired woman reappeared and left a case
of curiously unidentifiable beer on the floor beside Doyle's chair.  As soon as she had
disappeared again, he reached down and grabbed a can, his fingers slipping a little on the
frosty sides, and refilled his stein.  The empty can evaporated when he set it back in the
case.

A little later, the younger man cleared his throat.  "Schanke?"

"Yeah, Doyle?"

"You, uh," The Irishman turned to look his companion square in the face.  "You
mentioned that you can check up on the folks you left behind..."

Schanke grinned.  "Hand me a brewsky and we'll see what we can do."

End.

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