It is acknowledged that as politics stands in Northern Ireland the Belfast Agreement is on death row. But there could still be a reprieve for those on the Yes side.
Here's a scenario with which thinking politicians of all shades are very familiar. In Hillsborough on Thursday night, after Tony Blair left, David Trimble told pro-Belfast Agreement Ulster Unionists the British election could be as early as April.
In the unsettled climate the Ulster Unionist Party would be hammered in the Westminster battle. Not only would the First Minister have to defend the agreement to increasingly disillusioned unionists, but most of his team of candidates are opposed to the Good Friday accord. How could the unionist electorate figure that? No wonder the DUP's Peter Robinson was looking so chipper after meeting Mr Blair on Thursday.
And if local elections follow in May, the UUP toll of victims would be greater. That would be the date, if he hadn't fled sooner, for Mr Trimble to return to his university career and leave politics to those with a true taste for sado-masochism.
"We have got to give moderate unionism something to sing about before the election, because if Trimble falls the agreement falls. That's the hard reality, and all sides know that," said one senior British source.
There are some republicans who believe the collapse of the agreement would be no bad thing, because it would result in greater co-operation between Dublin and London, possibly leading to joint authority. Equally, some unionists are sanguine about the dangers, believing it would be merely back to the old status quo of direct rule from Westminster.
Neither of these views appears tenable. The British and Irish governments would have to work together more closely, but the whole political and social climate would become bitter and poisoned. Loyalist and republican paramilitarism would intensify. Politics would be moribund.
Therefore, Tony Blair didn't just come to Hillsborough to escape the foxhunting vote. He knows the general election date, and he knows that if the proagreement parties can't settle their differences then the outlook for the North is pretty calamitous.
The inescapable logic here is that it is in the mutual self-interest of Sinn Fein, the SDLP and the UUP to find a way out. Mr Blair's instinct is that a deal is do-able. There isn't much time.
He will meet the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, at the British-Irish Council in Dublin on Tuesday, and could revisit Hillsborough for more talks. ein, the SDLP and the Ulster Unionists. UUP.
Meanwhile, wearied but not yet broken, Ireland and Britain's sharpest civil servants are talking to all the usual proagreement suspects. Their brief is to determine if, to use Peter Mandelson's phraseology, an "all-embracing" agreement around the "interlocking" issues of south Armagh observation posts, IRA arms, policing and Sinn Fein ministers doing North-South business, can be achieved.
On a positive note Mr Blair briefed the Taoiseach by phone that the main players genuinely have the will to find an accommodation that could secure the agreement ahead of Westminster and local elections.
Mr Blair left with a grander, but more complex, ambition of not only solving the four interrelated difficulties but persuading Sinn Fein to endorse the police reform package.
There is a reasonable possibility that, with some movement from Peter Mandelson, the SDLP will endorse the Police Act and join the Policing Board. The framework is also there to start demolishing the watchtowers in south Armagh and for the IRA to seriously re-engage with the decommissioning body.
But getting Sinn Fein to endorse policing change when it wants a major overhaul of the legislation seems a long shot. Some believe this is a cynical republican attempt "to steal some of the SDLP's clothes" on policing.
Not so, says Sinn Fein. Gerry Adams gave Tony Blair a list of proposals that reflects, but is also over and above, the seven demands for police reform sought by Seamus Mallon. Mr Adams's demands require amending the legislation, and Dublin, London and other Yes parties say it won't happen.
It's all very tricky, but the doomsday alternative is what makes a deal possible. Realpolitik is the way out. Mr Blair and Mr Ahern hope all the proagreement sides will opt for a pragmatic, and not an "absolutist" solution.