No amount of warnings could prepare Maddy for the sight when she follows Helen into the dim room where Archer lays, tossing restlessly on a low straw bed, his wrists bound by leather straps, his body tense, muscles straining under an invisible load. His hair is plastered to his face and every inch of bare skin gleams with tiny droplets of sweat – he looks like a dewy morning. A sheet is tangled at his feet and the bandages on his chest are stained a rusty red. Maddy breathes in shallowly, much alike Archer, as though afraid that the sickness in the sweetly purulent air might be catching.

She drops to her knees beside him and takes his fingers; her eyes search for any resemblance to the rough, mean Archer she knows, but this man trembles and shakes like a wounded child. She touches his cheek and he mumbles, tossing his head the other way. His skin is searing, and she is surprised a human body can support that sort of fever. Distantly, she remembers school, learning something about proteins denaturizing once a certain temperature threshold is crossed. She fears Archer might disintegrate before her very eyes.

'Let us pray the antibiotics will help,' Helen speaks while preparing an injection.

'Pray?' Maddy finds that to be the least reassuring way of solving problems.

'You must understand, the infection has become widespread. By this point there is only so much drugs can do and if the pathogens in his blood are killed all at once, that much toxic metabolites in the bloodstream could cause deadly complications that even a top hospital would have an uphill battle with. However, if we don't treat him, he will surely die. So you see, Maddy, we are balancing on the knife's edge here…'

'So.' Maddy presses her lips together. Runs her thumb over Archer's knuckles. 'You're saying he has a fifty-fifty chance of—of making it?'

'I am afraid the odds are not quite as good.' Helen sighs. 'It is God's will now.'

/

God's will is not something Maddy puts a lot of stock in, but Helen seems to base her life around it. It is God's will that she lives with the Temne in a tiny village of just a handful mud and clay houses, and it is God's will that she came to Africa. Her work is God's will as it was His will that pushed her to leave the comfort of her home in Germany and then Médecins Sans Frontières, months after arriving in Sierra Leone. And it is God's will the sun shines and God's will the hunter brings back game and fishermen – fish, and God's will that they pray every evening.

Helen insists for Maddy to join service, and while she complies and prays with everyone for good airs and good fortunes, she tries to leave as little room for God's will over Archer as she humanly can. She sits by his side patiently, wiping his face, forcing salt water between his cracked lips, whispering soothingly and stroking his arm as he struggles against his bonds, the words spilling from his mouth an incoherent mess of names and calls to invisible visitors. Sometimes, his eyes land on her and she sees a glimmer of recognition, sometimes he even opens his mouth to speak before melting back into delirium. She sleeps on a straw mat beside him when night comes, but it could hardly be called sleeping – just fitful dozing when weariness conquers worry.

And so she remains by Archer's side as he gets steadily worse, his delirium giving way to a comatose state – he lies limply and his chest rises and falls in short, jerky movements.

'I am afraid you look no better than our patient, Maddy Bowen,' says Helen on the morning of the third day. Concern emphasizes the lines around her eyes and the way she purses her lips makes Maddy think of her mother. 'What say you get some rest and I sit with him?'

But Maddy shakes her head stubbornly. 'I want to be here in case…' She leaves the sentence unfinished, unable to name the fear that gnaws at her heart. 'How much longer, do you think, until we know…that he'll be okay?'

'His fever breaking would be a most welcome sign. Until then…' Helen shrugs.

/

She jumps awake in the middle of the night, unsure of what had woken her, unease coiling in her intestines. Archer's body lies still and quiet, his skin a pale silver in the moonlight.

Maddy sits on her knees, afraid to touch him. 'Hey,' she whispers. Then, a little bit louder, 'Danny?'

'Archer, huh?'

The voice is barely more than a breath, and had she not seen his lips move and his eyelashes flutter, Maddy would think she's hallucinating. It'd be no surprise, after seventy two hours of no sleep. Holding her breath, she leans over him, extends her fingers to his forearm. For once it isn't slick with sweat and his skin isn't burning.

'Archer?' She whispers again.

But his eyes are closed. His chest rises and falls peacefully, gone is the ragged breathing she has become so accustomed to. It is this newfound silence that must have woken her.

Maddy falls asleep sitting by his bed, holding his index finger in her hand like the first time.

/

The first day that his fever breaks, Archer can hardly open his eyes and Maddy has to lift his head for a drink of water. Mostly he sleeps, and the few times he tries to ask her something, she brushes her fingers along his cheek and he turns to her cool palm like a sunflower to sun. 'Shh,' she says. 'Everything's okay. We'll talk once you have rested.'

And he closes his eyes and drifts off again.

That is the first night Maddy sleeps since returning to Sierra Leone. The next morning she finally remembers the task she had abandoned without a second thought. With that in mind, she takes the sat phone resting on a table and quietly steps outside.

Her eyes sweep over the morning bustle of the village: the men leaving with their nets and spears; the women waving them out and rushing about their morning tasks of washing up the children and shoving them out the doors; the children falling into little groups as they make a whole journey of walking a few yards to the building that serves as a church, a school, and a place for all formalities; Helen waving them in, patting the occasional head and lifting her head to smile at Maddy.

Maddy gives her a quick wave and punches in a number. After a few rings, she hears Solomon's voice on the line. She is relieved to find out his deal with Simmons went as planned and his family is set to arrive within days. Maddy's heart swells to hear the joy in his voce when he speaks of this fresh start. He confirms that her older sister had taken over the task of documenting the events as they unfold and promises to pass her Maddy's best. They exchange a few more words and she heads back inside.

Archer is still asleep. Maddy stands still with a hand on her hip for a minute, looking him over, then without further ado, pulls her notebook from her bag and settles with her back against Archer's bed. With a pleased sigh, she dives back into the thing that makes her whole – changing the world with her words. Time and place melt away as the story spills from her pen and every smooth line of ink is a wondrous new beginning, the creation of something which would otherwise never exist.

'Exploiting the mishappenings a failed smuggler, huh?' Archer's voice jolts her back to reality.

She turns around and smiles. 'On the contrary. Describing a rather miraculous journey.'

Archer's lips twist into a spiteful grimace. 'Ja, ja. Don't doubt the ending would've been different if I had any say in it.'

Maddy shrugs, choosing not to start an argument. 'I am glad to see you awake. How do you feel?'

'Like baboon shit, huh? How do you think?' He tries to lift himself on his elbows, but it's not a wise choice. His face contorted with pain, he falls back onto the pillow, breathing hard. Maddy touches the back of his wrist, torn by the feeling of helplessness. Roughly, he jerks his hand away.

'What the motherfucking hell,' he hisses between labored breaths.

Maddy tentatively touches his shoulder. 'It's been a week since you were hurt, Archer. And you were very sick… If it hadn't been for Helen…'

'Helen?'

'She's a doctor. A spiritual healer found you and brought you back here and they both did all they could to help you…'

He sneers. 'Remind me to kiss their hands and feet when I see them, a'right?'

'You know,' she snaps, 'you must be the most disagreeable person I have ever come into contact with.' And immediately regrets her words. The man has just narrowly escaped death, and there she is, berating him. 'I'm – I'm sorry.'

'Ja, don't sweat it. Won't be the first time I heard it, huh?'

A silence stretches between them. Maddy desperately tries to think of something to say and when she does, they speak at once.

'So, Solomon's doing well,' Maddy says just as Archer furrows his brows and asks, 'When you say 'here', where do you mean, exactly?'

'It's, ah… All I really know is that this place is not on the maps and a good eight hour walk from Bafi. No roads lead here, how strange is that?'

Archer lifts an eyebrow mockingly. 'And you call yourself a journalist, huh?'

'Well, forgive me for having more important things to do than run around writing down the village history! There are a lot of kids here. And other people who are trying to escape the war. I suppose Helen could explain, she seems to have a lot of say in how things are done. But I haven't talked to her much…'

Archer scoffs.

'What?'

'Can't imagine what kept you…' But his lashes kiss his cheeks and his words drift away.

/

If there is one thing that Archer despises, it is feeling incapable. And at the given moment, he feels like a cripple. He is not only too weak to get out of bed, but he can barely lift his arms, as he finds out when Helen visits him in the evening with a bowl of soup.

He is still having a hard time pulling his mind together and his thoughts play games with him, coming and going, making him feel he's missing something important. He's been shot and Solomon has the diamond. Solomon has the money and he has a bullet hole.

And the bullet, as Helen later explains to him.

Maddy is here. He has been shot. How would she know? Vaguely, he remembers telling her he wished she was there. But that's not something he would do so perhaps he had dreamt it. Or perhaps he was dreaming now.

'Danny.' Helen touches his arm and Archer realizes he's missed his mouth with the spoon.

He curses under his breath. 'Figured it can't get any more rancid in here, huh?'

Helen takes the bowl from his hands. 'What you need the most right now is rest. And your strength will return in due time.'

'Ja, ja,' he mutters. 'How about a smoke?'

She looks genuinely appalled. 'Smoking will kill you.'

Not before your kindly smile does, he thinks.

It is after Helen wishes him a good night and heads for the door that he realizes he still knows nothing.

'Wait,' he calls out and she comes back to his bedside. 'After I was shot, how did I get here?'

Helen gives him a look that says she's explained it before. But she smiles patiently. 'Our healer was out with the older children, collecting herbs when they heard gunfire. Once they ran up to you, they were certain you were as good as dead, but brought you back here, convinced that modern medicine can work miracles. However, I had run out of miracles a long time ago and if your girlfriend hadn't rushed over here wi—'

'What,' he snaps. 'What? My what?'

'Oh,' Helen chuckles. 'I saw no rings, so naturally I assumed you two aren't married, but—'

'What?' He expels his breath with such force it sends him into a coughing fit. The pain is exquisite. 'Married?' He wheezes out. 'Where have you been getting your information?'

Helen is silent until he catches his breath.

'She's a journalist; I am her story. A'right?'

'You owe her a mighty good story then, dear. I have not heard of many journalists who steal a bagful of antibiotics, fly into a war-ravaged country they have just escaped, trek thirty miles through jungle and spend the following three days waiting on a delirious man hand and foot just for a story.'

'Sure is committed, huh?'

And as Helen leaves he thinks it would have been much simpler to die.