With the debacle of last week behind them, Northern Ireland's exhausted politicians are looking to their holidays and, more immediately, wondering is there any way out this mess.
Cedric Wilson, an anti-Belfast Agreement unionist, insists the agreement is a corpse which requires an autopsy rather than a vain blood transfusion.
In the coming days though, with George Mitchell's assistance, Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern will once more play the resurrection shuffle. The process is not totally dead, hold off on the Last Rites, is their view.
The prevailing mood is that if there is to be any hope of a deal, Gerry Adams and David Trimble are the only politicians who can really do it. Mr Trimble has already decamped to faraway places while the Sinn Fein leader is hanging about, for a week at least.
For Mr Adams there, is a meeting with the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, today, and on Wednesday or Thursday a get-together with the British Prime Minister, Mr Blair, in Downing Street. There's also a vexed republican constituency to comfort.
Mr Adams is still willing to parley, but on a number of conditions. He'll tell Mr Blair and Mr Ahern that while willing to engage in it, this review must be focused and time-limited. Between now and the review, expected in September, he also wants elements of the agreement, outside the formation of the executive and the various institutions, speedily implemented.
The Sinn Fein vice-president, Mr Pat Doherty, was yesterday calling for movement in areas such as the equality agenda, the creation of a human rights commission, greater demilitarisation, support for the Irish language.
For the first time, Sinn Fein is conceding that the events of recent weeks have undermined the party leadership. The unusual admission of internal pressure could be tactical but there's no doubt there are rumblings of dissatisfaction.
"There's no talk of a coup d'etat against Adams, McGuinness and McLaughlin, or anything like that, but there's a lot of unhappiness about," said one source. "Talk of seismic shifts, when the grassroots can't get a firm handle on what that means, causes uncertainty. People need to be reassured."
Republican sources say the Adams-Martin McGuinness leadership is secure. "It's a bit like the Belfast Agreement, what's the alternative?" said one. But, if in September, the deadlock can't be broken then people should really start to be concerned about the whole process, they warn.
And all the while the issue comes back to decommissioning. On the face of it neither the Ulster Unionist Party nor republicans appear to have much room for manoeuvre on the matter. Time is being bought but without gestures from either side there seems little hope of a deal.
At least by September, Mr Trimble should be free of the marching season pressure - although it could be replaced by other pressures such as Chris Patten's proposals on the future of the RUC.
Whether by September Mr Trimble will want or be able to take some risks on the IRA being truly committed to disarmament is highly problematic at this stage. Equally, republicans realise that if Mr Trimble was unable or unwilling to gamble last week on a strong nod-and-a-wink offer on disarmament, then by September, such a commitment will need to be strengthened - without conveying any impression of an IRA "surrender".
That could mean an IRA statement, and/or the IRA formally appointing a representative to liase with Gen John de Chastelain's decommissioning body. Such action could point to a greater commitment to disarm from the IRA but whether it would satisfy Mr Trimble is open to question.
In the meantime Mr Blair will decide whether to move Mo Mowlam; George Mitchell will wonder what he is letting himself in for by returning to the fray, and Mr Trimble and Mr Adams will ponder during the next nine weeks or so on how to reconcile the apparently irreconcilable.