1991

The small plane touched down and taxied across the runway. Through the window, Elizabeth could see the other woman waiting for her on the tarmac. Elizabeth climbed out of the plane, a duffel bag slung over her shoulder and a smile over her face. She moved forward to embrace her old friend.

"Juliet!"

"Bess. It's so good to see you."

They hugged each other tightly, and Elizabeth took a step back to take her in. "So Baghdad station chief, huh? You look good; it suits you. War zone treating you well?"

"I'm alive still, so I guess that's something. How's Langley?"

"Same as always. Conrad says hello, by the way. He told me you were doing some good things out here - right before he sent me in after you. I'll admit, Jules, Baghdad wasn't really in my career plans."

"What, you mean paradise?!" Juliet exclaimed, throwing her arms wide. "Don't tell me this wasn't your first choice assignment!" Juliet led her to a vehicle parked in the nearby hangar, and Elizabeth tossed her bag into the back and climbed in as Juliet started up the car. They bickered and laughed the whole ride back to the CIA-Air Force joint base.

"Well I, for one, am glad you're here, Bess. Honestly we don't have an interrogator here who can do what you do. I know this isn't exactly the assignment you'd been hoping for, but I think you can really do some good here." Juliet slowed to a stop as they came up to the entrance of the base and presented her badge to the guard. The barrier gate lifted and they rolled through.

"I'm always glad to serve, I just don't know if I'll be as helpful as you want me to be." Elizabeth said. This was her first time in the Middle East. Her field experience was limited to interrogation of felons back home; some with terrorist backgrounds, most without. She might very well be in over her head here.

"I think you'll be more effective than you give yourself credit for. Conrad was nothing but confident when he put your name down, and I am, too. I've seen what you can do, Bess." Juliet said.

They arrived at a small tent, and Juliet stopped the car. "This is you, but don't get too comfortable. The Marine Corps base is actually where we need you. It's on the other side of the city, so tomorrow morning we'll get you up to speed and get you out there. That's where you'll be staying for the next few weeks, at least."

"Well I won't unpack, then."

"Get some rest, Bess. I'll send someone for you in the morning."

In the morning, a uniform escorted Elizabeth to a command tent, where Juliet and several other uniformed men and women already stood. She introduced herself briefly before one of the generals jumped right into the meeting. Elizabeth was quickly brought up to speed on all of the progress that had been made under Juliet's directives, and was given orders herself on the kind of intel that she was expected to produce during her time here.

"A month ago, a group of Marines were leaving the base on a night raid when a small group of Iraqi soldiers intercepted the convoy. They were quickly subdued, and they are currently being detained at the base. Here is where you come in, Agent Adams. Our men have been interviewing these prisoners but have thus far come up empty on the intelligence front. We need a fresh approach. I hope you've been brushing up on your Arabic." The General said.

Elizabeth could already see that his expectations of her were low. What could she possibly achieve where his men had already failed? "Yes sir, I have."

"Wonderful. A dossier has been put together for you, and I have a team standing by to transport you to the base today. I've been told that they have assigned someone at the Marine base to receive you. A Captain McCord, I think."

The meeting wrapped up quickly after that, and Elizabeth was directed to her transport shuttle. Her belongings had already been collected for her from her quarters. Her transport team felt no urge to converse with her, which suited her just fine; she was busy trying to strategize the next two months of her life. She flipped through the dossier as they drove, but there was very little inside it save for a brief profile of each prisoner (some lacking even the most basic of information) and a sheaf of photos. There was hardly anything there to help her prepare a plan of attack, yet she was still expected to deliver high-grade intel. What did they expect of her, a magic trick? She sighed, slumping against her seat ever so slightly.

When they arrived at the base, her team helped unload her things and departed with a brief "good luck, ma'am". And as promised, she was greeted by a waiting Marine.

"Agent Adams?"

"That would be me." Elizabeth held out her hand, and the Marine took it firmly.

"It's a pleasure to meet you. I'm Captain Henry McCord. I'll be showing you around the base and setting up your interviews during your stay - until you get your bearings, at least." He gave her a warm smile. "May I take your bag for you?"

Elizabeth slung her bag over her shoulder. "Thank you Captain, but I can manage."

"Of course. Do you mind if we get you started right away? I'm afraid we've fallen quite behind in regard to the Iraqi prisoners, and the Admiral is pushing us hard to produce useful intel."

"I expected as much. Lead the way."

Captain McCord led her to a Jeep idling on the side of the roadway. He took her bag from her wordlessly and placed it in the trunk before rushing to open the passenger-side door for her. He slid in the driver's seat, and took them well into the heart of the base. "Last month," he explained to her as he drove, "We were ambushed by a small contingent of Iraqi soldiers. We've detained thirty men; maybe there were more that got away, but my best estimate is that this is most of them."

"So I've heard. Have you interrogated them yourself?"

"No ma'am, I'm just a pilot. I don't have interrogation training." They had arrived. McCord pulled over by an isolated bunker sitting low on the ground. He gestured toward it. "This is where we keep them. They all reside in solitary confinement cells. If you know with whom you would like to start, we can get to work."

Elizabeth nodded."Okay. But before we go down there, is there anything that you can tell me about them? I was given a few files, but they seemed . . . woefully incomplete."

He told her everything he'd observed of the captives. Elizabeth opened the dossier and pulled out the included headshots of the captured Iraqi soldiers. She had Captain McCord go through each one and tell her everything he could remember about that prisoner. Tics, behaviors, physical trademarks. He gave her as much information as he could. "I'm not sure how much of this will be useful to you." He finished doubtfully.

"It's all incredibly helpful, actually. Your memory is impressive, Captain."

"And you should know that we haven't yet gotten any of them to talk at all, ma'am."

"Well, let's see if I can get a rise out of them." She shuffled through the photos until she found the one of the man she wanted. She handed it to McCord. "I'll start with this one." She made to get out of the car, then paused. "And Captain?"

"Ma'am?"

"Call me Elizabeth."

Captain McCord set her up in an empty cell down in the bunker. With two chairs and a table set up within it and a tape recorder strapped to the underside of the tabletop, it functioned as a basic interrogation space. The Captain had left to get the first prisoner Elizabeth requested, and returned with a man significantly more gaunt in the face than the photo of him had shown. He was shackled at the wrists and ankles, and walked in a slow shuffle. The Captain sat him across the table from Elizabeth and, producing a thick belt from his pocket, strapped the man to his seat.

"Here you are, ma'am." Captain McCord said. "I'll be standing behind you if you need anything. There are additional men standing guard just outside the cell as well."

"Great." She said. And then in Arabic, "Now let's get started."

She took a run at this guy a dozen different ways. While she could see that she had initially startled him with her use of his native tongue, he quickly recovered and that was about the extent of a reaction she was able to elicit from him. Half an hour passed and she had not made any progress.

Elizabeth was standing up, hands braced on the tabletop. She leaned forward to look the man in the eye. "I'll ask you again," she said. He curled his lip in a sneer.

Suddenly he threw his upper body forward, and the crown of his skull connected with Elizabeth's face. She clapped a hand over her nose with a muffled groan as Captain McCord sprang across the room with a shout. The prisoner spat curses at Elizabeth, and Captain McCord subdued him by lifting up his entire chair and slamming him face-first into the table three times.

Blood flowed freely from Elizabeth's face and sprinkled the ground as she tried to staunch the flow. "Let's take a break," she said thickly, in English. "Keep an eye on him, Captain; I will return momentarily." This wasn't ideal, but it was progress. She was getting to him.

As dignified as she could manage, she exited the cell and walked to the end of the bunker, climbing out to search for something with which to plug her bleeding nose.

When the bleeding eventually stopped, she went back down and reentered the cell. Captain McCord stood in the corner; the prisoner sat upright in his chair, staring at nothing. He now had an additional restraint across his chest which strapped him to the chair back. Elizabeth slid back in her seat as if there had been no interruption. "I see that I make you very uncomfortable." She said in Arabic, seemingly non-sequitur. The captive lifted his head.

Elizabeth persisted for another three hours. She found that his hatred of her - as an American, as a woman, as a faithless human being - was very exploitable, and she used this to dig deeper and deeper under his skin. And the fact that she had the audacity to speak in his language? It drove him crazy. He struggled to remain impassive.

It took her nearly four hours, but eventually he cracked.

He did not give a flood of information, but the trickle that he supplied fell in line with the type of intel that Elizabeth was expected to produce. It was valuable enough to send to Juliet, tonight. The whole godforsaken endeavor was a good start to Elizabeth's first day on the job, bloody nose notwithstanding.

"We're done here," she informed Captain McCord. "Take him back."

As the Captain removed the prisoner's restraints and walked him back to the appropriate cell, Elizabeth climbed out of the bunker to get some fresh air. Fresh, overheated, blazing air. She sighed. It was a draining first round, and she knew full well that the next ones could be harder.

"Elizabeth."

She turned around. Captain McCord had emerged, and was approaching her with real concern in his eyes. When he was standing in front of her, he lifted his hands, and then hesitated.

"May I?"

She nodded.

He brought his hands to her face gently, using his thumbs to feel around her nose and cheekbones. He displayed a tenderness that did not seem befitting of a big-and-tough Marine. "It doesn't feel like anything is broken, but you'll probably have a black eye or two." He brushed the pad of his finger across the skin under her eye. "It's already starting to bruise here."

Elizabeth grasped his hands with her own and brought them down. "Trust me, Captain, I've been through worse. Thank you for having my back in there." He had reacted quickly on her behalf, and she was grateful.

McCord grimaced. "That never should have happened in the first place. I should have seen it coming, and I apologize."

"Hey, don't beat yourself up! All in all, that was a pretty good first day for me, don't you think?"

"It was. I'll be honest - I didn't expect you to accomplish much. I hadn't seen any of those guys utter even a single word before today."

"What can I say; I'm good at my job." She said facetiously.

"Well I, for one, am impressed. Did you get the information you needed?" McCord spoke no Arabic, so he couldn't judge how effective Elizabeth had truly been.

"Some. But there are twenty-nine of them left for me to take a crack at, so I imagine I can start filling in the holes in the intel soon enough. I'm here for awhile, so."

"Well, I look forward to working with you for the foreseeable future, Elizabeth Adams. It was a pleasure to watch." He gestured toward the car. "Should we grab some food? You must be hungry after all that. I can show you where the mess hall is."

"I'm starving! I would love to, Captain."

"Please - call me Henry."

Elizabeth sat across from Henry McCord at the end of a long table in the mess hall, a cafeteria tray in front of each of them.

"The food isn't the best." He warned her.

"I'm sure I'll live." She said. At any rate, she was so hungry that it hardly seemed to matter.

They ate in comfortable silence for a little while before Henry said, "So tell me about yourself, Elizabeth."

She put her fork down, considering. "Hmm. I've been with the CIA four years; recruited right out of college. This is my first assignment overseas. I speak Arabic, French, German, working on my Farsi. I mostly do analyst work but I have extensive interrogator training, too." She smiled self-deprecatingly before saying, "Iraq was never really part of my career aspirations, but I suppose that speaking Arabic plus joining the CIA plus working the Middle East desk is kind of like a one-way ticket to the Middle East."

Henry laughed. "I think you're probably right. But for what it's worth, I'm sure you'll do a lot of good here."

"So I've been told. It's just that I . . . I don't have much field experience," she confessed. "But I wrote this whole report on the inefficacy of torture tactics, and my boss decided that I should put my words into action." She shrugged self-deprecatingly. "He figured I'd learn fast."

"He was probably onto something there. Tell me more about your report."

So she did. Torture was unethical and, more importantly, unproductive. It was a waste of CIA time and resources, and any good interrogator should know a hundred other methods anyway. "You can get all of the information you could ever need without wasting everyone's time or compromising yourself ethically. As I've proved today." Elizabeth said. "Granted, I get that this may not always be feasible, ya know, realistically."

"You've shown that it is feasible."

"Maybe I just got lucky."

"We'll see tomorrow whether it was luck or skill." He said as he took a bite of his meal. He considered something as he ate. "You know, all this time that I've been here, I've never once observed an interrogation that didn't involve torture before today."

"And were they successful?"

"Yes, sometimes. But with these prisoners specifically? Not at all."

"Exactly! I'm just saying, torture is too often used as a first-choice method when there are other practices out there. Yeah, maybe these alternatives are not as easy as prying off fingernails, but they work better." Elizabeth paused to take a bite of her food. "But then, what do I know? I'm fresh off a desk and probably in over my head."

Henry's face curled into a grin. "Elizabeth Adams, I find your ethics and convictions to be very sexy."

Elizabeth laughed again. "Why thank you, Captain Henry." She teased.

It was dark outside by the time they left the mess hall. Henry walked Elizabeth to her tent. He carried her bag for her despite her protests.

When they reached her tent he said, "Here are your sleeping quarters. I'll come get you in the morning and take you down to the bunker again, if you wish to get started first thing."

"That sounds great, Henry. And . . . maybe we can get breakfast? You know, before. I mean, if you have time. If you're not busy. Or if you are then I can just -" She babbled.

Henry cut her off. "I'd like that. Good night, Elizabeth. I'll see you in the morning."

Right on schedule, Henry appeared in front of her tent early the next morning. The sun was just rising over the desert, and it flooded them with brilliant, beautiful light. It warmed them as they walked to the mess hall together.

"Did you sleep well last night?" He asked her.

"Oh, like a baby . . . kind of."

Henry chuckled. "You get used to it."

At the mess hall, they both sat down at the same table as the day before to wolf down their meals. Elizabeth's plate was heaped with food, but Henry had made do with a significantly lighter fare. She nodded toward his tray. "You might wanna load up with a little more than that, flyboy. You may not think it, but interrogation is deceptively draining, and we have a long session ahead of us today."

"You're doing the interrogating, you need the energy. I'm just the jarhead that stands in the back and roughs them up when they try to break your nose." He gestured toward her face. "It doesn't look so bad, by the way."

The skin under Elizabeth's eyes and around the bridge of her nose had blossomed into a light bruise, but she was sure that it would fade by the end of the week. All things considered, it wasn't as bad as it could have been.

"Thanks," Elizabeth said, bemused. She gingerly touched the side of her nose. "You never know; it might happen again today." She dropped her big terrorist file on the tabletop next to her food and plucked a photo from its depths, sliding it over to Henry. "We'll start with this guy today. He was mentioned during the interrogation yesterday, and again during my conversation with the CIA station chief last night. Juliet hinted very heavily that he might be an important player here, and that I should pay attention to him especially, so that's what I'll do. I think it should take less time to break this one, anyway."

Henry glanced at the picture, then nodded. "Okay, let's rock and roll."

They went down into the bunker, and did not come up again until it was dark outside. As Elizabeth had predicted, it had taken her no time at all to break her chosen guy - but then she'd moved on to one of his comrades, and interrogating that one had taken up the rest of her afternoon and evening. She was exhausted and starving.

"Come on," Henry said, "Let's go and get some dinner." He gently guided her to the vehicle with a hand hovering over her shoulder, and opened the passenger-side door for her. She climbed in wordlessly.

"Good intel today?" He asked as he drove. "You were going at the second guy for a really, really long time." And like a good soldier, Henry had been right there with her the whole time. He glanced over at her. Elizabeth's head was tilted back against the headrest and her eyes were closed, but she wasn't asleep.

"Longer than I expected." Elizabeth agreed in a murmur. "But yeah, good intel. I'm building a nice little narrative for the station analysts to sift through . . . I'll have to send them all of the audio files tonight, with my annotations." She sighed. "My god that's going to take a long time."

At the mess hall, they ate in a comfortable silence, the both of them too worn out to offer up much in the way of conversation. Henry returned her to her tent afterward.

"I'll see you in the morning, then?" He asked.

"Yep. Bright and early." Elizabeth gave him a weak smile. "Thank you, Henry. I appreciate everything that you've been doing for me, I really do."

Henry smiled. "It's my pleasure. Sleep well, Elizabeth."

Elizabeth and Henry continued in this routine as the days ambled by. He greeted her at her tent; they left for breakfast; he stood guard as she interrogated their prisoners all day long. Elizabeth never stopped for lunch, nor took many breaks. Even if she happened to finish with one man early, she simply had Henry take him back and, searching through her portfolio for another photo, would request the next one. When she was on a roll, there was no stopping her.

Henry carried out her orders, respected them, and trusted that she knew how long she wanted to go and when she wanted to stop. It was not unusual for Elizabeth to carry on into the small hours of the night - by the time they were through, her hands would be shaking from exhaustion and low blood sugar. He never once second-guessed her abilities to soldier through her interrogations, though, nor asked to be relieved of his post himself. He was the only person who guarded her inside the cell, and though Elizabeth never said anything, she preferred it that way.

Afterward, he always make sure that she was fed - they always ate dinner together after she finished her interrogations - but he never made her feel like he was stifling her with overbearing concern. Henry was quickly becoming a very good friend.

They talked a lot. During their "dinner dates", as he teasingly called them ("It is so not a date", Elizabeth would retort, even though she had no qualms at all about that characterization), they learned a great deal about each other. They talked about Elizabeth's horse farm, Henry's family in Pittsburgh, Elizabeth's parents' death, his pilot training.

"So do you not have anything better to do here than hang out with me all day?" Elizabeth had asked him, mostly playful but also legitimately curious. Because surely a Captain in the Marine Corps had more important business to tend to than her mundane interviews. "I feel bad for taking up all your time."

"Well, besides PT and training drills, we're all just kind of sitting on our hands waiting for official orders. Trust me - you're not pulling me away from anything."

"And when, pray tell, do you train when you're with me at all hours of the day and night?"

"At the crack of dawn, when else? We Marines are up pretty early, you know."

"Now I feel even worse!" Elizabeth exclaimed. "I keep you out at all hours of the night, and then you have to turn around and run a hundred miles three hours later? God, I am so inconsiderate." She suddenly jumped up. "Wait! What time is it right now?!"

Henry chuckled, tugging at her arms to get her to sit back down. "Don't even worry about it, Elizabeth. I promise, I'm fine. And anyway, I like spending all this time with you."

She huffed. "Fine, okay, but from now on we'll just stick to one interrogation per day; no more of this high-achieving nonsense."

"Okay, deal. Let's talk about something else. Where did you say you went to college, again?"

"UVA, Class of '87."

"No way . . . Class of '85!"

Elizabeth gaped. "You're kidding! I must have seen you on campus then, huh? We must have crossed paths!"

"I don't think so. It's a big school, and I would definitely remember if I'd seen you before."

"Oh really?"

"Yup. I would've definitely noticed you, no doubt about it."

Elizabeth rolled her eyes, grinning. "There are thousands of girls at UVA, Henry - I doubt you could've picked me out of a lineup."

"Plenty of girls," he conceded, "but only one of you."

Elizabeth couldn't stop smiling.

The weeks blew by. Before they knew it, Elizabeth had little more than a week before she was due to return to Langley.

She sat outside of her tent with Henry, not quite ready yet to say good night.

"They're planning air strikes in Kuwait." Elizabeth told him softly. "All pilots will be out there by the end of the week." She'd gotten the chance to speak to Juliet earlier that evening; Juliet was the one who told her. The air strikes were a strategic offensive planned in part due to the intel that she'd produced. And now, after seven weeks in the desert with Henry, it was going to be the thing that pulled him away from her.

"I know." Henry said. Calm. "They notified us today." He was always calm, always grounded, and it comforted Elizabeth. He slipped his hand inside hers, and she held onto it tightly.

And anyway, she thought, Henry was a pilot. He would be twenty thousand feet up in the air, removed from the main carnage. Elizabeth recognized that she felt a sense of possessiveness over his life and wellbeing to which she had no right.

"Will you be here when I get back?" He asked her.

She shook her head. "I don't think so. Two months is all I promised them. I muster out at the end of the week."

"I'll miss you."

"I'll miss you too."

"Can I see you again when I return stateside?"

". . . I'd like that."

Henry's responding smile was brighter than the sun. He turned toward her and took her face gently in his hands. Elizabeth's eyes fluttered shut and her lips parted; it was all the invitation he needed. Henry closed the distance between them, bringing their lips together. He kissed her deeply. His hands wound themselves into her hair; hers around his neck. She pulled him closer. Henry opened his mouth to her; she whimpered.

They pulled apart. Henry touched his forehead to hers.

"I will show up for you." He promised.

Elizabeth had given Henry her phone number and address in Virginia. And then, he had shipped out by the end of the week.

Elizabeth wrapped up her remaining few interrogations - now partnered with a Private whose name she did not know - and then packed up to head back to the CIA station. From there, she would be sent back stateside.

Elizabeth met her assigned transport team in the same spot where, two months ago, she had first met Henry McCord. She threw her belongings in the back of the Jeep and climbed in. They drove off the base, headed for the other side of Baghdad. She was so ready to be home.

They weren't ten minutes out when the first shots were fired.

Bullets connected with the shell of the vehicle. Elizabeth cursed and ducked down.

The driver swerved evasively. "Under attack; heading back to base!" He roared into the vehicle comm system.

His partner drew a rifle from under his seat and swiveled around, propping it on his headrest and aiming it over Elizabeth's head. "Stay down, Agent!" He fired off a few rounds in multiple directions, which told Elizabeth that he had no visual on their attackers.

Elizabeth felt a blunt force knock her back against the floor of the vehicle . . . followed by a sharp and blinding pain in her side. She couldn't gather enough breath to cry out, and then she discovered - rather frighteningly - that she had to fight hard to breathe at all. She glanced down to see a dark, wet patch spreading rapidly across her shirt. Fuck.

Above her, the Marine shouted, "She's hit!"

Elizabeth blinked back tears. Black spots encroached on the edges of her vision, converging rapidly. And then, there was nothing.

Elizabeth woke up in a hospital ward. She felt sluggish, weak. A haze of pain came over her in slow waves.

"Agent Adams, can you hear me?" said a voice somewhere above her. A bright light flickered in front of her eyes. She looked up. "You took quite a hit, Agent." The man peered at her. "I'm Dr. Cole. I performed your surgery two days ago and," he checked her vitals monitor, "you look to be shaping up quite nicely. But you're not out of the woods just yet."

Elizabeth licked her lips. "Wha-what happened?" She rasped.

"Your escort team was hit with gunfire on the way to the CIA base; you took a bullet in your side. When you came in, you had two broken ribs, a collapsed lung, and your spleen had ruptured. If they hadn't gotten you back as fast as they did, you might not have made it. You were struck with a hollow tip bullet, and it splintered inside your body. We had to perform emergency surgery, and I was able to remove most of the shrapnel, but these next few days will be critical in determining how you'll recover."

"How long will I be here?"

"We can't be sure just yet. Once you get stronger, we can fly you back to the States for further treatment. If everything goes according to plan here, my estimate is that you could be home within the month." She visibly deflated. Dr. Cole gave her a sympathetic smile. "I'm sorry. I'll let you get some rest."

Elizabeth closed her eyes. She took shallow breaths to avoid antagonizing her ribs and tried to will herself to fall back to sleep. Everything hurt.

A month came and went, and Elizabeth was not getting better. Her surgical wound became infected, and then she developed pneumonia. She was put on a second, more powerful course of antibiotics and it wreaked havoc on the rest of her body while doing nothing to beat back her infection. Dr. Cole was becoming increasingly grave.

Elizabeth was fearful. She was becoming increasingly confused, delirious, and her moments of lucidity were becoming fewer and farther between. At one point, she thought she saw Juliet at her bedside - but she could have hallucinated it. She did not see a bright future ahead of her.

The next time Elizabeth opened her eyes, Henry was sitting beside her. He was holding her hand in one of his and reading aloud from a well-worn book that he held in the other. He'd shown up for her, just like he promised he would. And god, he was so handsome. Was he always this handsome?

"Am I hallucinating?" Elizabeth asked in a hoarse whisper.

Henry put down the book and wrapped both his hands around hers. "Hi there. I'm really here, Elizabeth. You're not hallucinating."

"You came back." Her chest filled with joy.

"Didn't I tell you I would?" He said with a weak smile. "But imagine my surprise when one of my buddies tells me that my 'CIA girlfriend' is still on base."

"Well what can I say - I wanted to surprise you." Elizabeth chuckled, but it quickly devolved into a hacking cough and she curled up in pain.

Henry wrapped an arm around her shoulders and brought a cup of water to her lips. "Easy now. Small sips; there we go."

"God it hurts." She wheezed. He carefully lowered her back down to the bed.

"They told me what happened to you." Henry said. He looked devastated. "I still can't believe it. You were supposed to be home by now; I was so looking forward to going back to see you. I was going to come by your workplace and surprise you with roses." He admitted.

She took his hand. "You're so sweet, Henry. I was looking forward to seeing you back home, too, but . . ." Fresh tears sprang to her eyes. "Henry, I . . . I think this is it."

"No, no, no, Elizabeth, you listen to me. You're going to go home, you will. I'll be by your side the whole time; I'm not leaving you." He brought her hand to his lips, kissed it. "I'll take you home."

Elizabeth tried to concentrate on Henry's face and Henry's words, but it was difficult to do both. She decided to close her eyes and focus on the sound of his voice.

He kept talking, desperately. "You can show me your horse farm and, and maybe we can visit your parents' graves. I'd really like to, if that's okay with you."

"I like that. They would've loved you." Elizabeth said softly.

"Yeah, sweetheart."

"I want to see them again." She confessed. "Everything hurts."

"But you're so strong, Elizabeth. You'll get through this. You're the strongest person I've ever met and I am so proud to know you." Henry was babbling now, and trying not to cry. "After we visit your parents, I want to take you up to Pittsburgh and introduce you to my family." As long as he kept talking, she would stay with him. He needed her to stay with him. "I want to tell them that I've found the girl of my dreams." He stroked the side of her face. Her skin was feverishly hot and damp with sweat.

"I'd like that." She murmured. Speaking was becoming a greater and greater effort.

"I can make you happy, Elizabeth." Henry said. He smiled brilliantly. "I know I can, and I want the chance to prove it to you. So you just have to pull through this."

He was still clinging to the hope that she would, but Elizabeth knew better. And somewhere beyond the delirium, she felt terrible that she had to put him through this. He was such a good man. It was never supposed to happen this way.

"I could have loved you," she whispered tearfully, and the sorrow in her voice took his breath away. "So much."

She touched his cheek, and he turned his face into her palm and kissed it. Her fingers brushed away his tears.

"Kiss me," she whispered. He did.

Elizabeth died in the early hours of the morning. Henry laid over her and wept.

The sun rose, and the rays touched them through the windows of the ward. Henry finally found it in him to pull away from Elizabeth's lifeless form. He looked up at the light; warm and beautiful and radiant.

It reminded him of her.