The phone rang and Oscar jumped. He was up to his neck in quarterly reports, and the last one had bored him into a light doze. He could tell by the ring that it was Rudy calling from the lab.

"Yes, Rudy?"

His voice was agitated. "Oscar, there's a problem with Steve."

"What?!"

"You need to get a medevac in there right now. And get Russ to him - as soon as possible."

Oscar quickly followed Rudy's request with two phone calls, and raced down to the lab.

He burst through the door and found Rudy staring at two monitors in the back corner. Rudy turned. "Done?" he asked sharply.

Oscar nodded. "What's going on?" His stomach was clenched and he was sweating.

"Steve suddenly complained of back pain, and then his blood pressure dropped radically."

"What..?"

"He's not answering anymore." He looked at Oscar hard, his face pale. "I'm afraid he's having a heart attack."

"No..."Oscar protested, scanning Rudy's face anxiously."What else can we do?"

"Did you tell Russ to call?'

Oscar nodded.

"Then we wait."

Oscar sank into a chair and looked to his old friend, seeking guidance. "Should I...call Jaime?"

Rudy shook his head. "Wait a little. All we can do right now is make her frantic. And then there will be three of us feeling helpless."

----

There had been a serious discussion between the three old friends before this mission. Steve had come to Oscar a month earlier and requested an assignment - something light and not too dangerous, so he could keep his skills up. He was feeling rusty. Oscar had found just the thing - a short mission to investigate some mysterious signals to space originating in the Sierra Nevada mountains. It was not much more than a hike up the mountain to make a discreet investigation - the kind of thing Steve could handle with his eyes closed. Rudy did a quick physical, during which Steve confessed to a little back pain, but otherwise he was well - just a little out of shape. Oscar had been a little reticent about sending him, but with his usual aplomb Steve convinced them he would be fine. Rudy had insisted on a monitor for both Steve's heart and respiration, and one for the bionics. Oscar added Russ as back up. Steve had rolled his eyes.

"Now are you old ladies gonna let me go?" he asked.

They stood on the tarmac, and Oscar extended his hand. "Just remember pal, if you see the Donner party up there and they offer you lunch, don't accept."

Rudy rolled his eyes. Steve grinned. "You're a sick man, Oscar." He shook hands with his two friends. "You fellas keep an eye on my girls for me, okay?"

----

It had been half an hour, but it felt like a lifetime. Rudy watched the heart monitor while Oscar paced. He called the military three times to make sure the helicopter had been sent out as requested, and that it had reached Steve. He resisted calling Russ, not wanting to interrupt him in whatever he was doing to help.

Suddenly Rudy turned to look at him - and the expression on his face immediately confirmed Oscar's worst fear. It felt like a hard blow to the stomach. He even felt himself double over slightly.

"Could the medics...have...removed the heart monitor...?" he asked, clinging to hope. Rudy just shook his head and stared into the middle distance, unable to respond.

The phone rang, and Oscar snatched it from the cradle. "Russ?"

He could tell someone was there on the other end, but it took a long time for Russ to reply. "Oscar..." There was another silence. "He's gone."

"He can't be gone." Oscar commanded frantically. "Keep him going till you get to a hospital and get him on life support."

"That's where I am. We don't know what happened... his heart...something catastrophic. He's...dead."Russ's voice cracked. "I'm so sorry Oscar."

"I know you did your best." Oscar could barely push the words out. "Bring him home."

He put the phone down and crumpled into the nearest chair and put his head in his hands. He and Rudy sat in silent disbelief. He finally looked at Rudy through glazed eyes. "I have to tell Jaime."

"I'll come." Rudy asserted. "You'd better order a car."

"Right. Uh..." Oscar said distractedly. He picked up the phone. "Callahan, get me a driver."

The car took them through Washington too quickly. There was a traffic jam, and at one point they sat through three lights, but it was still too quick. As he and Rudy sat in leaden silence, Oscar tried to formulate over and over again the words he would use to tell her. Would one choice of words make it less devastating than another? Did it matter what form you used to ruin a person's life?

Jaime wasn't home when they arrived. He sat on her front step while Rudy leaned on a pillar and stared at his shoes. Oscar didn't know how long they had been there when she finally rounded the corner with Emmy in her arms. Her blonde hair was tied back in a ponytail and she looked content, perhaps a little tired. He was seeing the last moments of happy ignorance on her face. She stopped in her tracks when she saw them - a moment of hesitation - and then she knew. She dropped to her knees on the sidewalk and pulled the baby tight to her. Both men rushed forward. Oscar lifted her to her feet while Rudy gently took Emmy from her.

"No, Oscar, no. No." she shuddered. He took the house keys from her and opened the door, letting them in. Swiftly he guided her to the couch and sat her down. Squatting in front of her, he gripped her arms, hoping in some small way to give her strength. Rudy sat beside her with the baby, who was beginning to fuss.

"What...what..." She was panicked, grasping at Oscar's lapel, wanting answers and not wanting them all at once. "Where is he? Is he alive at least?" Her voice shook violently.

Oscar bowed his head. "Steve's ...gone, Jaime. His heart, we think...we don't know for sure. They did everything they could..."

"Noooo." her voice lifted high, into something like a howl. "No, no, no." She covered her face with her hands, as though trying to hide from them. Watching her receive this worst possible news caused a wrenching feeling in Oscar's chest that had to be his heart pulling itself apart. It was so much worse than his own misery.

She slowly calmed and her breathing became more regular. She took her hands from her face and stared at Oscar. Her expression was icy.

"You did this." she said quietly. She roughly pushed his hands away. "I think you'd better get out of my house."

"Jaime..." Oscar and Rudy exchanged startled glances.

"Get out. And don't ever come near me again, do you hear me?" Her voice was ferociously cold. "Because if you do, I'll take you apart. And then Rudy can put you back together again, and then you can run yourself all over on OSI missions until you drop dead. And that ought to suit everybody."

He could say nothing. She was unapproachable in her rage. He stood up, backed away from her and looked to Rudy who nodded gently, affirming his instincts. Rudy would stay, but there was nothing Oscar could do but leave.

He sat down in the back of the car and tried to suppress the violent shaking that had overtaken him.

"Back to the office, Mr Goldman?" the driver asked.

"Just give me a minute." Oscar replied. He looked at her house. It looked so normal on the outside. But everything was ruined. He wanted to go uproot the plants, hack down the trees and smash the windows - so the world would know.

"I think I'll walk." he said, getting out. He hoped the shaking would diminish if he moved.

"Are you sure, sir?"

"Yes. Call Callahan and tell her I'll be back in a couple of hours. And go pick her up and bring her over here immediately."

Oscar walked blindly through the streets of Washington. He shouldn't be on his own, he knew, but he didn't much care. Once a fellow pedestrian pulled at his jacket to stop him from crossing against the light. All the loss he'd ever experienced was brought to the surface, to be felt anew. The world had changed in an instant, and this new world didn't look like it would be much worth living in. He was flooded by memories of Steve. He had never had a truer friend - a fact Steve kept disguised by streams of sly jokes and slaps on the shoulder. He couldn't really believe he was gone. He tried to force the thought on himself and it immediately made him sick to his stomach. He dropped onto a bench. Jaime's last expression haunted him - he had never seen hate written on her face until now. In the last year she had been increasingly impatient with him, and she was particularly unhappy with the idea of Steve taking assignments. Now her worst fears had come true. No wonder...

He had seen grief expressed as fury before, and he had seen it directed at him. A year after his brother Sam disappeared during the attack on Pearl Harbor, his mother suddenly died. It was supposed to have been a stroke, but the family always knew that the real cause of death was a broken heart. The day of her funeral was the last day Oscar ever remembered feeling real warmth from his father. After that, he could do nothing right. It wasn't that his father was physically abusive - but he developed a hair trigger temper that was frequently set off by his awkward and gangly twelve year old son. Oscar's sister Judy tried valiantly to defend him, but that only made the old man angrier. He gradually learned, over the remaining five years he lived in his father's house, to become inconspicuous, and to quietly engineer some sort of a life for himself. It was a skill that stood he found useful in his career, but it came with a price - there was a part of him that was forever trapped in that house.

He would call Judy tonight. She would understand. He would have to resist unburdening himself to her completely - because he couldn't do that with anyone. He felt a pang of self pity, followed by an almost crippling stab of guilt. Steve was gone. Jaime was a widow. Emmy had no father.

---

Tributes to Steve poured in. He was given a full military funeral. Many friends and colleagues came to Jaime or wrote to her to tell her what he had meant to them. In one sense Jaime was proud, and in the other, stronger sense, she felt cheated - cheated out of a lifetime with the only man she loved.

There was also a family funeral, organized by Helen and Jim, where everyone wept throughout. Callahan held a wake, everyone telling stories of Steve, many funny and some very touching, which made Jaime miss him all the more acutely. Everyone gathered around her, and though she felt as though her heart and soul had been scraped out, leaving her completely hollow, she knew she was well cared for. She didn't prevent Oscar from coming to any of these occasions, and he stood a respectful fifteen feet from Jaime at all times and remained completely quiet. Jaime thought he looked like Poe's raven, dressed in black in the back of the room. She half expected him to croak out Nevermore.