She wakes screaming from nightmares. The sound jerks him out of his uneasy slumber in the hospital chair. In an instant he is by her side, rubbing her back, kissing her shorn hair. "It's alright, little bird, it's alright. Don't cry; you're fine. I've got you."

Her family comes to visit first thing the next day. A woman with the same hair and brown eyes, a handsome Afghan man. Two little girls and a little boy with dark skin, all holding hands.

"Who are you?" they ask. "What are you doing here?"

When he tells them, her mother starts crying, and hugs him tightly to her. He would feel uncomfortable, but for the fact his own mother reacts like this every single time. He's used to it.

"I knew you were out there, I knew it," she sobs.

"Thank you for saving her," the step-father says in heavily accented English. "We thought she was gone, no-one could find her."

"I'd do it all over again to keep her safe," he vows, the fierceness in his voice making her mother smile and blink back another round of tears.

The children, Rosie, Leilah and Fahran, crowd the bed, touching their older sister's hands, her hair. "Wake up, Feather," they plead. "We love you. Wake up."


She never talks. Not to her family, not to him.

It hurts them, he can tell, but he knows the trauma she's been through.

The doctors say she might never speak again.

He doesn't care. He'll love her all the same.

Unconditionally and irrevocably, she's burrowed into his heart, and she'll stay there until his dying breath leaves his body.

"I love you," he whispers to her sleeping form. "I know it's crazy, and I know I haven't known you long, but I love you."