Cross stopped beside a fresh grave site. The grass had not yet even fully covered the rectangular plot. Carter finally caught up to Cross and favored him with a quizzical look, but Cross could see the anguish and hurt behind it. He decided to drop rank. "Matthew spoke of you often, Lee," he said. Carter wasn't sure what to make of that. "Uh… he did?" Cross nodded. "Yes. Well, maybe 'often' isn't quite the right word. He was a man of few words, a very private person, as you well know," he added mysteriously, but then grew more serious again. "He spoke very highly of you and your squad." "That's… ahh," started Carter, suddenly finding herself beginning to choke up. She cleared her throat and fought to master her feelings. After a second she managed a small smile and said, "He managed to keep us on the straight and narrow." She sniffed. "Did he, uh, say anything else about me?" Cross smiled, and to Carter it was the same minimalist, enigmatic smile she'd seen on Matthew's face on those special rare occasions when he'd wanted to tease the Banshees with a glimpse that he actually liked and respected them. "Nothing important," said Nathan Cross, still smiling. - - - - - - - - - - This one actually took a whole day to put together, and I think I was pretty lucky in how things fell together or else it would have taken me a week. There's a lot of bitty pieces in this pic. 20 trees and a few dozen grave markers for starters. The headstones are a custom model I cobbled together in Hexagon -- basically just a slant-topped block with a text character Starfleet delta on top. The 2 fancy grave markers and the bench are freebies. The fency thing came with Vue and is actually supposed to be a "balustrade". There are 2 Distopia Blocks in the background. Lee Carter is, as usual, V3 with the WLG Lilli morph, wearing the Star Brigade uniform textured by ME. Nathan Cross is M3 wearing the Mariner uniform, morphed using Wardrobe Wizard by ME and textures by ME. Characters dressed and posed in Poser 7. Scene built and rendered in Vue 6 Esprit.