Author's Notes: This is my third stand-alone E:FC/PR crossover, mostly because Wes and Katie picked up Ben Wiley's annoying habit of walking into fics that didn't concern him. It's AU for both series, falling late second seasonish for E:FC and sometime after PRTF. It's just a little short piece with little or no plot.

No Room For Regrets
by Selma McCrory
copyright 2001

Liam watched Da'an and the rich and mighty of the city of Silver Hills mingle. It was a rare privilege for those of the city; the Companion did not, as a rule, get out that way very often. On his end, it was his chance to meet the head of the Liberation movement in the area, at least if Renee had given him the correct identification signals.

"Protector Kincaid?" a youngish man asked. "Renee asked me to relay a message. Something about a shipment in cat id chips going awry."

This was the signal he'd been waiting for. He studied the young man. Bleached-blonde hair, at least at the front. He actually looked more like a surfer than anything else. The equally-young black woman hanging onto his arm looked more in the role of an executive than anything else. "And you are?"

"Wes Collins. This is my wife, Katie."

The woman beamed at him. "Inevitably delayed?" he asked, going for the second layer of passwords.

"Cat chips. Doors International makes everything, you know that, and there's some snafu in the chips. Something about the application of Taelon BioTech to solve the lost cat problem."

"Okay," Liam said, satisfied that the second layer had been passed. "I assume you're a Doors International employee?"

The young man shrugged. "CEO of BioSynth, a Doors subsidiary. Doors International bought us out years ago."

"Pleased to meet you," Liam told him. "BioTech, I presume?"

"Among other things," Wes said. "We were going into the field of genetic engineering just before the Taelons came. Obviously, now the big thing is Taelon biotech. That's why Doors bought us out; the guy knew a good, if struggling, investment."

The look on Wes Collins' face gave Liam the impression that the young man was, if anything, pleased by the decision. He didn't seem the kind of person who, at first glance, would want to run a big corporation. He wondered how Wesley had ended up with BioSynth in the first place.

"You don't regret it."

The statement was just that, a plain statement, but the other man seemed to be amused by it. "I don't. There's so many ways that things could have turned out. I'm just glad the company that my father's company is in good hands."

"But... turn the ifs into gold...."

"And we'd all be millionaires. I didn't know anybody else knew that saying." Wes responded thoughtfully. "I don't regret what I've done, Major Kincaid. Doors was a good choice, in more ways than one. There's a future out there with mine and Katie's names on it, and I don't want anything to fall in the way. Not even my own pride."

"Or anybody else's?" Liam responded.

"We know our own future," Katie responded for the first time. "We've seen it in our dreams."

"And being with Doors is the best way to fulfill it, as far as we're concerned," Wes added. "We have no regrets, Major. We can't."

"I understand," Liam told him, seeing Da'an move further into the crowd. "Believe me I understand. Excuse me."

He left to follow Da'an, knowing that he'd get back to the Silver Hills Liberation sometime. He, too, had no room for regrets.

-end