Uncle was there as the team returned to the Colony. What was left of them, at any rate. His face remained stonily clam as the families of those that survived greeted them with cries of relief, while the kin of those who were missing issued cries of their own. When his eyes lit on Toni carrying the prone and bloody figure of Lucien, he scowled; the young man was being carried towards the infirmary, which meant he still lived. As he turned to follow, he caught sight of Hassle standing among the crowd. It had been upon Hassle's information and reassurances that the raid was planned and approved, and the loss of four productive members of The Colony (and potentially Lucien as well) had to be answered for. He jabbed a finger in the suave young man's direction. "You. My lab. Now. Wait there for me."

Without even waiting to see if he was obeyed, Uncle followed after Toni and the others towards the makeshift infirmary. He watched from the entrance as Jodie frantically did what she could for the bleeding man, just aware as she was that they really did not have the medical supplies or training to calmly deal with such trauma. The possibility was that Lucien would live was not too remote, but it would be so easy to miss something that could cost him his life under their care. Uncle sighed. Jodie was young, and the loss of a patient could seriously affect her morale and confidence. Other options were going to have to be pursued.

As Toni started to leave, Uncle put a restraining hand on his shoulder. "Once the supplies are inventoried and stored, come to the lab. I want a full debriefing." He then grimaced. "Then we can ask Hassle what the hell happened to his 'piece of cake' mission."

***

Uncle left Hassle to squirm and wait in silence until Toni showed up. The de facto leader sat heavily behind the main table and drummed his fingers upon its surface, his eyes boring holes into the two young men in front of him. He wanted Hassle to squirm some more. 

Just as he was about to start in on the men, he spied a slim shadow hanging by the entrance to his lab: Pony. The girl looked devastated and had obviously been crying - her eyes were puffy and red. Callous as he could be, Uncle did not have the heart to bring attention to her or send her away. Whatever miss-mash this happy little crew was making of their relationships with one another, he could not deny that she had a right to hear what had happened to the man she both loved and called friend. He ignored her for now, focusing his attention on the young men before him, Hassle most of all. "What happened out there? This was supposed to be an easy, high yield run. Instead, we lost Tall Bob, Gail, Mike and Jack. We also lost one of our only two modified vans, and the haul is nowhere near what we need or hoped for. Oh, yes, and oddly enough the man both of you were at odds with is a bloody sack of meat in our infirmary, using up even more supplies. So I would really like to know what went wrong, gentlemen."

***

Floating in a black haze, Lucien thought he heard someone calling his name. It was like swimming through a fog of confusion where nothing could possibility make sense, and yet that confusions as keeping a screaming agony away. He could feel the pain just at the edges of his consciousness, threatening to spill over raw and red into his mind. Distantly came the realization that he was drugged. That was the only thing that made sense. He thought he should feel bad about that, painkillers being preciously scarce in the Colony. He hated to think they were wasting them on him.

There it was, someone calling his name again. Crying. Well that wasn't right either. 

Pony. Would cry for him. He would have cried for her, albeit for different reasons. But it didn't sound like Pony, he decided, because Pony's voice was much higher and had an air headed quality to her words. It sounded like Cassie's. But Cassie was dead, taken by the robots-

No, that wasn't right either, he remembered. Cassie had returned, had said she still loved him. Which was good because he still loved her, but it was bad because... because... it made everything he thought for the past several months a lie. But it was good, because she was back and she still loved him. Or had he covered that already? Lucien couldn't recall. Opening his eyes seemed incredibly difficult, as well. Instead, he raised an aching arm that was swathed in bandages to fumble loosely around for whoever it was that was crying. 

"Cassie?"