In Your Fire and In Your Flood

"You are the wife?"

"Yes." The hell with accuracy, it was the most expedient response.

The doctor, identified by the badge on his white coat as Dr. Youssef Howayek, pushed his glasses up so that they rested just forward of his comb-over. "Your husband's blood pressure is very low—that's what has caused the momentary loss of consciousness." He considered. "If I may ask, what was his mood immediately prior to the episode?"

"We'd been talking. Then it seemed—just for a moment—as though he'd forgotten where he was—"

He made a note. "And the wound on his arm—?"

Mac turned to Jim expectantly.

"He was pushed against a wall. There was exposed rebar—he snagged it pretty hard. I irrigated it as well as I could at the time." Then, looking at Mac, he added, "I told him it should probably be looked at by a doctor or someone."

But exculpation was a hard sell with Mac just now. She crossed her arms protectively.

The doctor slid his glasses back onto his nose and consulted the chart. "I suspect this event is some infection related to the injury. The blood work will tell us more, perhaps in a few hours. In the meantime, we have started intravenous fluids. He's sleeping, so why don't you get something to eat and return?"

From a small café adjacent to Khoury General Hospital, Mac ordered two coffees and then fixed Jim with a withering glare.

"Fell out of a car? Seriously?"

"Is that what he told you?" Jim shook his head. "There was a bit more to it than that."

"I should hope."

Her phone chirped and she glanced at it, and he remembered that she had been scheduled to return to Damascus with the DR crew this morning. "Sorensen?"

"I think he's probably figured out by now that I'm not going with them, but I ought to call him back in a little while. I even warned him yesterday that there was a good chance I wouldn't."

Curiosity was getting the better of him on another matter, though. "I was just wondering how you happened to be—I mean, when I left you last—"

"We spent the night together. The two of us. Will and I," she added, with no small amount of impatience at his affectation of naiveté. "Alert the media. I would have thought it was rather obvious. Now—" she focused on him, "you have a lot to answer for, Jim. Bringing him here—coming here yourself. The pair of you, treating me like some trophy to drag back—" She forced an exhale to calm herself. "Start now. Tell me everything."

Jesus, Mac.

He cleared his throat. "He and I had different motives in the beginning. I just wanted to find you, beg you to let me join your team—and I was willing to let ACN pay for the trip. Charlie sent me along to babysit him, keep him out of trouble—"

"—So, you had decided from the outset that you were going to ditch Will and betray Charlie's trust?"

"It wasn't—I mean, I wouldn't have really let anything—"

"Except you kind of did," she established. "And you know well that you couldn't really have stopped things from going south. A car bombing—"

"This is Lebanon, Mac, no one's at war here—"

"How about abduction, then? They're epidemic here, and you bloody well know it. Nearly 30 journalists have been snatched since the Syrian civil war began and at least a dozen of those are still being held. What was your secret plan to prevent that?" She slammed her cup to the table.

"And there is some force field around you, protecting you?" he shot back in a harsh whisper. "Don't fault us for risking the same hazards you seem to want to embrace. Will wouldn't even be here, neither of us would be, if you hadn't cut and run—"

"What?"

"You ran out on us, Mac. The show, the people in the newsroom. I can't speak to what happened between you and Will, but nobody at ACN deserved abandonment."

"I didn't abandon them. It's complicated. I was ashamed—"

"You had no cause to be. A lot of bright people got taken in by Genoa. Besides, Charlie had the ultimate responsibility, not you." After a painful pause, he looked at his watch then back to her. "We don't have time to argue and I really don't want to argue with you anyway. Let me try to get through this as quickly as I can."

"I'm not stopping you."

"It, um—it started with a joke. Except it really wasn't very funny."

The road from Zahle to Bar Elias was, as the road from Beirut had been, four narrow lanes flanked by steep embankments and studded with fissures in the tarmac. Their vehicle, a Mercedes SUV of ancient vintage, seemed able enough, despite a certain visual decrepitude, to make the scant twenty mile journey to the refugee settlement area, but the fixer recommended by Mathias was an immediate liability. He spoke no English, only parroting a few phrases, and once on the road it became apparent he didn't understand the rudimentary instructions Jim tried to convey. They were summarily deposited at the edge of the refugee settlement, where the road ended and the driver departed.

Such was the comeuppance of the Das Erste team's professional resentment.

Jim shifted the pack containing camera equipment and looked around. The overpowering smell of braziers and rotting food assailed him, and to one side he could see women and children picking at a mountain of garbage, the obvious dumping grounds of the nearby Lebanese town of Bar Elias. Two small cinderblock structures, once either equipment sheds or guard shacks, their corners crumbled and facades cloaked in graffiti, seemed the line of demarcation into the settlement. Children's faces peered from the broken windows and lined the dark doorways.

Neither Will nor Jim spoke of the obvious, which was that they were now effectively marooned in a refugee shantytown. No driver, no fixer. No local language skills. No apparent resources, and certainly no one to whom they could parlay Will's celebrity into lodging or transportation.

Jim suddenly felt like an idiot. He'd put them in this situation when his field-experience-honed judgment should have warned them off.

"Lead on." Will zipped his jacket against the chill wind and looked askance at the foot-worn rut that constituted the way into the settlement. He was terse but seemingly committed to following Jim.

"Will wanted to file something, a story of some kind. I think he wanted to give something back to Charlie, you know. Neither of us was vested in this particular story, at least, not at the start. We certainly weren't prepared for what we saw when we wandered into that camp—but we should have been, given the fact that upwards of a million displaced Syrians are in-country now." He rolled his eyes in a gesture of impatience. "It started off as just something to mark time until we could meet up with you."

She blinked slowly. "Go on."

"The conditions in the camps are dire, by even the most generous of terms. Shelters are tents made of plastic sheets nailed to wooden frames. There's no infrastructure of any kind, no electricity, no sanitation. Water comes from a communal spigot." A bitter smile came to his lips. "Hell, the Lebanese even forbid the refugee settlements from officially being labeled as camps, because they think that denotes permanence." He shook his head. "Semantics."

"But charity and relief organizations—"

"The NGOs are stretched thin. This is a crisis across many countries."

Jim felt many eyes on them as they negotiated the path, occasionally dodging an errant child or a sullen elder. Almost unconsciously, he had started humming some old doo wop ["As I walk along- I wonder what went wrong—"], until Will hissed at him to knock it off.

A startling number of people had begun to line the path, watching them intently for some hint of the reason for their visit. Strangers in the camp were often the conduit of assistance, of food, medicine, or money, but Jim was unable to tell if the crowd of obviously desperate people watched with hope or curiosity. Perhaps apathy, he thought, or even cynicism, as surely they knew by this time that only the most urgent needs could hope for respite, that there would be no easy or immediate solution for the disarray of their homeland and the circumstances that had brought them here. Despite the growing mass of people, they parted easily to allow Will and him to walk through.

Following the well-trod trail, they arrived at a clearing with a cluster of sturdier looking canvas tents. Refugee interest in them began to wane as they approached what appeared to be the crossroads of the settlement. Scores of young girls holding plastic jugs stood in line a hundred yards away, waiting their turns to catch water falling from three exposed pipes. Will tapped him on the shoulder and indicated the first structure, ducking through the open flap.

"It was a Doctors-Without-Borders team. They were there monitoring disease in the camp. Tuberculosis. Cholera. Diseases endemic to refugees. Will talked with the team leader while I went off and tried to unobtrusively shoot some B roll stuff." He leaned across the table. "Mac, you know I'm not squeamish. You and me—we've seen the poverty, we've seen the diseased and disfigured kids. I thought I was inured to it, but—if ever a world audience was needed—

"Anyway, when I returned, a videographer for Al Jazeera was there, too, and he told us that someone with the U.N.'s High Commissioner for Refugees would be making a side trip to the camp the following day, part of a wider swing through the Bekka valley. He offered to take us back to Zahle for the night and return the next day, but we opted to stay and make the most of daylight shooting." Jim paused. "Actually, Will kind of insisted. He had gotten quieter as the day wore on. I mean, I think he was just taking it all in and trying to figure a way to make sense of it, of the experience.

"The NGO let us overnight in their tent, which by the way was cold as hell but at least blocked the wind. And there was an open fire in an oil drum outside, so we could go out there and warm up a bit."

He put up a hand. "I know what you're going to say, so let me head you off. We were careful. I went with him anywhere he went that night. The Al Jazeera guy said that the camp had a lot of factions within it—Sunnis aligned with al-Qaeda, pro-Assad moles. Not to mention your basic garden-variety predators."

"Anyway, the trouble didn't come until later the next day."

Trying to do the editing in his mind as they worked, Jim framed Will in front of the heap of refuse at the head of the camp. He had lobbied for using the medical tent as background, but Will was adamant that a visual shocker was needed. And although the home audiences would (mercifully) be spared the noxious smells of the dump, the image of children scavenging through the filth would create an indelible impact. Will's instinct was correct, Jim conceded.

Will kept his remarks extemporaneous rather than scripted. The visuals would carry this piece, they both knew, but the words were important, too. It was vital to convey the pathos, the scale and relentlessness of the suffering.

"Just outside Bar Elias, in the cold, arid Bekka Valley, over 15,000 displaced Syrians are effectively squatting on the soil of a country that is an unwilling host. It's harder out here in the less populated area of the country—in Beirut, refugees can slink down into the urban landscape, eke out a fringe existence. Out here, they are almost entirely at the mercy of the locals who contain them. And a cold and dismal winter is coming."

Jim waited for Will's pause to signal a cut. Next, they would move to the NGOs—

Then he followed Will's gaze to four white Land Cruisers with blue letters on the side, now parking on the opposite side. Two dozen westerners, many in matching powder blue jackets, spilled from the vehicles and seemed to be gathering around local Lebanese officials.

Jim slung the camera over his shoulder and fell behind Will as he moved to join what was obviously the UNHCR delegation.

"It wasn't the high honcho himself, just some deputy. But it really didn't matter who it was. We just wanted some reaction from the U.N. about the situation, what was being done about it.

"They were being guided around by two Lebanese officials, and we just sort of joined the retinue. A few of the U.N. group seemed to recognize Will, guess they were based in New York, and he chatted them up as we followed. The centerpiece of the tour was evidently the Norwegian Relief's effort to distribute materials to build better shelters. Ironic, in a way, because U.N. efforts were nowhere to be seen."

With a look, Mac tried to prod him to continue.

"Will worked his way to the front of the group and—well, he started quietly with the facts, as we'd learned them. How many people, how long they'd been here in these conditions. How long they might be forced to stay here. Where was the outrage, the aid from the international community. That sort of thing. The thing that Will does every night on the show to liars in suits, he was trying to do the same thing to the U.N. team. Not antagonistic, but persistent. Dogged, you know?"

"I know." She did.

"I recorded a little of it, but he wasn't doing it for bombast and it was one of those moments where it seemed journalistically self-serving even to film it, like those "gotchas" on 60 Minutes or Dateline. But Will genuinely wanted to know. He was appalled by what we found and he was looking for the accountability, he wanted to know what the world was doing about this." Jim gave a bitter smile. "Of course, the answer is, not very much. Not enough, certainly. And that was the gist of Will's remarks, when we did resume filming an hour or two later."

"I want to see it."

He nodded. "Anyway—despite putting the deputy commissioner on the spot, Will didn't burn any bridges, and they offered to make room for us in their Land Cruisers for the ride back to Zahle."

Hours later, as daylight waned and they followed after the delegation, Will and Jim both became aware of a commotion near one of the abandoned cinderblock buildings. A little girl was recoiling from an angry man. He struck her again. From the open handed blows, it seemed obvious that this was discipline, not assault, but the child's age (perhaps five?) made it criminal nonetheless.

Will's head whipped around at the girl's cries.

"Hey—hey—stop that—"

Jim reached for his elbow. "Will—we shouldn't—"

"—Tell him to stop that—" He shook off Jim's cautionary hand and moved toward the fracas. "You—yeah, you—stop hitting the kid—"

"Will, don't—"

But Will had seized the man's wrist and held it, while the man twisted and shouted what could only be colorful abuse in Arabic. Around them, a crowd of Syrian refugees surged, seemingly on the brink of erupting into action.

"I don't understand, I don't know what you're saying," Will countered as the man struggled against him, "just stop hitting her."

The U.N. officials paused as their Lebanese host loped over. He exchanged words with the angry man, offering soothing tones. Will released the other man's wrist.

"He says she has stolen."

Will and Jim, who had joined him, followed the Lebanese official's gaze to the little girl, who was clutching something tightly in her hand.

A watch.

It looked familiar.

Christ.

"She didn't— I gave—look, tell him that I gave that to her." Will looked anxiously at Jim. "They're not going to cut off her hand or anything, are they?"

Jim slowly shook his head.

The Lebanese offered further consoling words to the indignant refugee.

But the Syrian man, while satisfied with exoneration of his daughter, was still displeased at having been made a public fool. Let alone the humiliation of the blonde westerner interfering with the proper discipline of his child. So, as Will and the others made to back away, he abruptly whirled and shoved Will against the cinderblock wall. Just to reaffirm his dignity.

Two inches of exposed rusty rebar sank through Will's sleeve and into the muscle of his upper arm.

Jim's wince broadcast the injury. The Syrian slunk away and members of the UN delegation hurried forward.

Jim ripped the jacket sleeve and then the shirt beneath to see the puncture, a small well of blood rising. Will was finally convinced to sit, making things easier on Jim, who was trying to brush fibers and crumbs of rust from the wound site.

"Here—gimme that," Jim said to a member of the U.N. team, relieving her of an unopened bottle of water. He used it to flush Will's arm.

Aside from a sharp intake of breath when the water initially hit the wound, Will showed no reaction to the fuss being made. In a laconic attempt to deflect attention, he even began, "On the farm—"

Jim angrily cut him off. "Hey, plowboy, this isn't Nebraska. This should be washed out and then looked at by somebody. When was your last tetanus shot?"

"We came back to Zahle in the U.N. convoy. They were staying at the same hotel—probably miffed Will had the biggest suite." Jim ran a hand through his hair. "And I don't know why he's being so damned dog-in-the-manger-ish about what actually happened. The kid was spared a whipping. Old pappy Ahmed will probably slap her around again in the future, and now she'll have this expectation of rescue."

"You have to know about Will—"

He held up a hand. "I don't think you could tell me anything I can't already guess. Thinks he's bulletproof." He sighed. "But it was a nice performance from a guy I didn't think had it in him. And, besides, you haven't heard the ironic part. Will lied—he hadn't given the kid his watch. He told me later that it had been chaffing his wrist that morning so he'd taken it off and stuck it in his pocket. Either it fell out and she found it, or the kid really did swipe it. But he was just so worried her hand would be chopped off."

Will, so well-acquainted with the battering of children, particularly and incomprehensibly at the hands of their guardians.

Her phone impatiently chirped again, breaking in on her thoughts. Sorensen. She needed to call Jonas, let him know—

"Mac?"

"Go back to the hotel. Find those U.N. support forces, if they're still there. Tell them they're going to get a call on behalf of the former Ambassador of the United Kingdom—"

When they returned to the hospital, Dr. Howayek wasn't available and Mac talked to a more voluble junior associate, Dr. Hadad, who had only one question.

"Is there anything in his family history to suggest a compromised immune system?"

She searched her memory. "I don't think so—he never spoke of—"

"Ms. McHale." This doctor had not jumped to the same marital conclusion as had the previous one.

"Mr. McAvoy's blood work showed conclusively that this is an episode of sepsis, a cascading systemic inflammation, probably as a result of the wound to his arm. Serious but rarely mortal to a man in otherwise good health. Rather easily treated with antibiotics and intravenous fluids. And a few days' rest. So, in the absence of any immune-complication, he should recover well." He smiled at her evident relief.

"When can he be moved?"

"He should remain under observation for another 24 hours, primarily to ensure his blood pressure has stabilized. The extra fluids we're giving him are important as well." He considered. "You desire to transfer him to another facility, perhaps the American University Hospital in Beirut?"

The second time his eyes opened they stayed open, giving her encouragement enough to prompt, "Will?" And then add, when he didn't immediately respond, a very producer-ly, "Say something."

"Don't hit me."

She gave a relieved huff. "I won't." Then, as she noticed him struggling to swallow, she poured water from the carafe and offered him a glass with a straw.

He sucked at it thirstily. When he finally looked up, he appeared tired and sheepish. "Bungled the rescue, didn't I?"

"I didn't need to be rescued." It still seemed important that she make it clear.

"But I did."

"Well. You do have a way of making my problems all about you." She gave him an indulgent smile and leaned to kiss him.

"And a night with you brings a very big hangover."

"Touché. But just to be clear—this little event is the result of—falling out of a car."

He shifted his gaze to survey the monitors and I.V. but gave a small grunt of affirmation.

She reached for his hand. "Why don't we let the antibiotics smash the microbes while you chase more sleep? I'm working to get you out of here as soon as possible."

"Mac—we're still okay?" Despite the rasp in his voice, she detected uncertainty… vulnerability.

"Everything's fine, Billy. We're going to be fine now."

With that assurance, he lapsed back into sleep.

Later in the day, Jim returned with news. The U.N. support team was pleased to be able to offer assistance to the journalistic associates and daughter of the former U.K. Ambassador; to this end, it was standing by to provide an airlift to RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus at the earliest opportunity. Mac then tracked down Dr. Hadad and politely badgered him until he agreed that, contingent upon the patient's continuing and significant improvement, Will could be released to convalesce on his own recognizance as early as the following afternoon.

When Will woke again, it was early evening. Mac was bedside but wore earbuds and was listening intently to something on her laptop. He pushed up in the bed, gratified that the effort worked this time. (Earlier, it had seemed that his muscles were flagrantly insubordinate to commands.)

"You're back." She pulled the earbuds from her hair.

"What are you watching?"

"You. Your piece on the refugee crisis. For the second time, actually. It's really good, Will. Really."

"Ah. Two really's from MacKenzie. High praise indeed." Despite the snark of his words, he looked pleased.

"How're you feeling?"

"Grateful there's no Foley?"

She took his meaning. "Why don't I just step outside for a minute? Should I send someone?"

"I've got this. I think. Why don't you give me a couple of minutes and I'll—"

"Two minutes. Got it," she said, backing out the door. She found a nurse and told her to check Will—"But make it seem casual," she added, her meaning probably totally lost on the other woman.

When Mac returned, Will was upright, sitting on the edge of the bed.

"First major hurdle to release completed. Eating seems to be next, so they're going to bring me something. You know how I love Jell-O."

"I remember."

"Thanks for staying, Mac." He reached for her hand. "I know I infuriate you most of the time—"

"—Only when you haven't worried me sick."

"I'm sorry about that."

She made a dismissive wave. "I called my father. Asked him if he could call in any markers at the U.N." She paused to allow that to register. "So we will be getting a ride to Cyprus tomorrow. First step to taking you home. Assuming you're ship-shape and all."

"We're getting on a boat?"

"No, sorry. I'm mixing my metaphors. What I meant was, they're going to fly us to the British military base. In an airplane," she added, since near-comic specificity seemed to be the order of the day.

There was a soft knock and Jim looked around the door. "Mac, got a minute?" Then, noticing the patient was now ambulatory, added, "Hey, Will. You're looking better. Feel okay?"

"Yeah."

"Charlie called. Demands that you call him as soon as you can speak."

Will nodded.

Jim closed the door behind him and looked back to Mac. "This may not be the best time, but I thought you'd want to know—"

His preamble immediately raised her defensive shields.

"I ran into someone from the Das Erste team. They told me—some journalists were caught in shelling near Homs. That's a few miles north of Damascus. "He didn't mean to be melodramatic but felt like he had to pause before giving the rest. "Sorensen's team."

She gave an over-rapid nod, not knowing the words to say and not trusting her voice at that moment to carry them.

"Casualties?" Will voiced for her.

"Don't know. They were in a bunker used by the opposition forces. The Syrian Army has overrun the area now. I imagine there will be some kind of evacuation of the wounded. Repatriation of journalists." He tried to gauge her reaction. "Mac. Your presence wouldn't have changed anything for them."

He was right, and she knew it. But she also knew that she'd run out on another team at a crucial moment.

I'm just crazy about loyalty.

"Mac. Don't over-think this." Will looked very concerned at her prolonged silence. He gave her another half- minute, then offered, "Remember the immortal words of the poet, There's nowhere you can be that isn't where you're meant to be."

That brought her back to herself. "Poet?"

"Okay. John Lennon." He shrugged and tried to look hopeful.

She finally sighed. "Perhaps. But he was wrong about it being easy."

A tray arrived for Will and, at his urging, as he tried to adjust the angle of the bed and pillows to accommodate eating, Jim called Charlie.

"James Harper," Charlie's voice boomed. "Word has grabbed my ear that you've damaged my anchor."

Busted. Jim winced.

"I'm right here," Will spoke up. "You're on speaker, Charlie."

"Will, what the hell's going on there?"

"Little infection from a scratch. I'm fine."

"You'd better be, goddamit. I want the pair of you back as soon as you can find a flight." Pause. "Will, there's something else—I might have some bad news. I just got a call from Magnus Lunde at Danmarks Radio and there's been a report—"

"We've heard it, too"

"No one can confirm if she's—"

"She's here now." Will inclined his head. "Say something to Charlie, Mac."

"Hello, Charlie."

"MacKenzie? What the—how—when did you—oh, fuck. Well, thank God, anyway." But Charlie recovered quickly. "Mac, would you like to double your salary? I'm hurting for producers right now."

The uncertain news about DR made it hard to manufacture a genuine laugh, but she tried, for their sakes.

"Of course, you'll have the young ones nipping at your heels. Like this brash fellow Harper, who will probably be summoned to testify before Congress—"

"What?" Jim exploded.

"As I was saying, testify before Congress on the humanitarian crisis unfolding in Lebanon. The minority whip is agitating for some special committee to investigate and report on—"

"Congress?" Jim was well and truly astonished.

"—and Will, too, but probably not for a couple of weeks, of course, because they're in recess for the holiday." Another dramatic pause. "Good job, boys. Now, get your asses back here before anything else happens. And—Mac—you're still on the payroll at ACN, you know. Just been on loan to another news agency for a few weeks."

"But you just offered to double my salary."

"I figured Will would make up the difference."

Will gave an exaggerated nod.

"Okay, I hope that's clear: the three of you back here and ready to go to work on Monday. Dash-thirty-dash."

Jim frowned. "Dash-what?"

"What do they teach you kids in journalism school, anything? Dash-thirty-dash. End of the story. That's it. Finis." Then, in a stage whisper, he added, "Murrow and Brinkley must be revolving in their graves," and disconnected.

On Wednesday, Jim had arranged a car and driver standing by at the hospital, but the lugubrious pace of discharge made it mid-afternoon before they were finally loaded. He dropped his own pack to the curb and peered in the passenger window.

"I'm, um, I'm making a detour. If there's even a chance of a Congressional gig, I need to be a lot more conversant about the problem. There's another camp a bit south of Beirut, at Ain al-Hilweh, and I thought I'd give it a quick look-see before I head back." At the look of remonstration on Mac's face, he hurried to add. "Real quick look. And I'll be careful."

"Jim." Her eyes crinkled in a characteristic expression of concern and bemusement.

He leaned in for a buss on the cheek. "I promise you'll see me at the first run-down Monday."

"I'd better."

"Will." Jim stuck his hand through. "Take care, man."

"Thanks for seeing me through."

Jim straightened. "Oh—I put the guitar in the back, with your bags. It'd be nothing but a nuisance to me for the next couple of days, and I thought maybe you could pick out Del Shannon's greatest hits while you're on the beach in Cyprus. Or something like that."

He thumped twice on the roof of the car and the driver pulled away from the curb.

At the Riyaq airport, a Griffin helicopter with markings of the 84 Squadron ferried them to the Sovereign Base of RAF Akrotiri on the southwestern coast of Cyprus. There, they were met by a young uniformed officer who escorted them to a small suite at the visiting officers' quarters.

"We're not turning someone out, are we?" Mac felt obliged to ask.

"No'm. No general or flag officers on board at present, and the diplomatic lot usually opt for civilian hotels with greater amenities. We've often had journalists popping 'round, what with the troubles in Syria just now, but you're the first who also happens to be the daughter of an ambassador. Rather a high rank for this outpost. Oh, the officers' mess is located around the corner, short walk." He shot a look at Will. "I believe they can even manufacture a facsimile of your holiday meal tomorrow."

It took a moment for both of them to realize that tomorrow would be Thanksgiving Day.

Later, after the duty officer had departed, Will plopped onto the sofa in the tiny sitting room.

"Good. You're down. I was afraid I'd have to send for the tranquilizer darts." She tried to keep the tone light to mask genuine concern at having moved a barely-ambulatory patient too quickly. "Perhaps you should get some sleep? And some water, you're still supposed to be forcing fluids…"

"Mac. Slow down." A small smile hitched one side of his mouth. "I'm fine. A little tired—but everything's okay. Why don't you check and see if there's been any messages?"

She placed a bottle of water on the table within his reach then dug for her phone.

"Charlie. There's an update on the DR team."

Will sat up, attentive.

"They're both all right. Arne had some minor lacerations, Jonas some broken fingers." Her relieved sigh punctuated the report. "Oh, and he's got the flight information. Day after tomorrow. Layover—Gatwick." Considerate Charlie. She looked up. "He's already forwarded the information to my father. Hope you're up for a day with my family."

He made a mock scowl. "Seems somewhat cruel to inflict future in-laws on a sick man."

She let the "future in-laws" pass with only a broader smile in reaction. "In any event, they will likely be busy upbraiding me."

He dug around in his pocket and withdrew the familiar Tiffany's box. "Actually, Mac, I was thinking we should put this somewhere safe." Then, taking her hand and sliding it on her finger, added, "That should do."

"Oh, no, Billy. You're not getting off that easy. If we're going to do this, after all this time, I want it all."

"And you shall have it—moonlight, roses, wine, and tender words. All of it. But having this thing in my pocket makes me feel like a second-story man, so why don't you wear it for now? Especially if we're going to be visiting family."

"You realize we'll be flying over water, and if I fall out that rock is going to drag me to the bottom."

"First, let me say that I consider it unlikely you will simply fall out of an airliner. And, second—" he grabbed for her other hand, "I'm not letting go."