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Jo never really believed in fate, and even with these coinciding events to hand still she did not. Something wasn't right, and it wasn't just that Marshall had been blown sky high.

That was Continental's version of events and blame was put squarely by Bob Samuels on environmental vigilantes, some of whom were killed whilst carrying out the explosion, some apprehended at the Continental site, some at Westbury. It had not been the best of returns to work Joanna had ever had and, being drawn together as an organisation in the firm's canteen again, after what seemed like a lifetime since their Christmas party, she stood, listening carefully as the chief executive stated the company's position and a revised plan of restarting the work.

For a charismatic man, Bob certainly looked shaken, no matter how he tried to hide it as he addressed Continental's employees factually, and reassurance. It seemed that a large, co-ordinated attack had been planned to severely disrupt the company's business and, with so much damaged, even put Continental out of business.

Jo had glanced across to Chandler as Samuels spoke, however his back was to her and he did not notice the concern on her face as she relived their journey back to the apartment complex. It had been close to eight that evening when a very shaken Chandler had got out some of the luggage from the boot having got to a deserted car park at the complex; Joanna had just taken in the essentials for the night, plus some work clothes and things she would need for the next day, automatically obeying the protocol in her mind that tomorrow she would be doing what 3rd January expected of her despite logic, which would have come to an altogether different conclusion: to go to work and do her job. And it had been only on their drive to work the next morning that Jo actually wondered whether there was actually a work to go to and she had called Nathan Daniels' number on the way.

"We are all expected in, as usual," her boss confirmed, after they had exchanged brief pleasantries. "Looks like IT will have a mountain to do to keep everyone up and running after this; it wasn't a near-miss, like last time: we have no engineering building; the main drill is out of action and there's a huge hole in the car park." And it seemed so. Technical had been the last department to attend the meeting: Jo had watched him lead in his team, concern on all of their faces, and Kathy Allen, from the analytical section of engineering had nudged Joanna as they stood close to one another, trying to discuss something which seemed very important to them.

"The terrorists were very well informed and attacked when our sites were at staffed at the lightest," Bob continued, "but we shall come back from this, as we did last time. We are operating within our rights to serve the people of this country with cost-effective fuel. How many people on reduced circumstances...the elderly...families...youngsters just starting out...they would be in so much difficulty if it weren't for us. Our business gets up someone's nose. But, as long as we are providing a service to this country, to the disadvantaged, then I shall keep right on doing it. Who's with me?"

A great cheer erupted from the workers; shouts of "right on!" and "yeah!" filled the room as colleagues nodded, hugged and high-fived one another. It was a rousing speech and definitely, Joanna considered, one which was needed to inspire the workforce. Jo had often wondered when those golden-tongued within a corporation were ever needed and, she decided, that it was at times like these, to soothe raw nerves and invigorate a sense of camaraderie. A lot of of the workers, especially working outside with the plant machinery lived in Marshall and would have to find alrwenative accommodation and it would be tough for them and their families if they had once originally chosen Marshall, being the cheapest, it was unlikely they could afford anything else through Continental.

And so work began again; the Westbury shale was beginning to be drilled with copious quantities of oil and even more gas. That was something – Continental had raw. Joanna had a place to stay, and had made it back to Caravan City just in time. And, more importantly, she and Chandler had left just in time so that meant they were not amongst the casualties that night.

Nathan held the door for her as she stepped outside with her colleagues returning back to the engineering department. "At least it wasn't here again, although God knows they tried," he said, conversationally. She nodded as they walked silently across the site. The next five weeks were going to be nothing if not eventful.

Had the Joanna who was about to board the plane from Sloulin International Airport on 12th February recalled herself thinking that, she may well have shook her head in disbelief.

88888888

"...and the Gruffalo just snored and snored and snored - " Jo broke off as the door of the apartment closed loudly and looked up from the phone. It was lunchtime on the second weekend of January, Continental returning, as predicted by its CEO to normal. She looked down at her phone and then in the direction of the door, having just read Timothy his bedtime story.

"Listen, can you put on your Aunty for me?" she asked him as three thousand miles away he yawned down the phone. Chandler raised a hand silently, putting down a brown paper bag of groceries quietly onto the kitchen counter.

"All well?" she asked Frances, who confirmed it was.

"They have a sort of calendar where they're crossing the days off for you coming back, Jo," Frances said, before adding, "yes, of course another one, look Jo," she added, "I'm down as their carer til you get back– do you want me to go to their parents' evening? Or will you see their teachers when you're home?"

"You go, and if there's anything else I can speak to them later." She nodded her head as Chandler picked up a diet Coke from his shopping bag and held it in her direction. After saying a quick goodbye to her sister, Jo took the drink.

"You making lunch?" asked Chandler, glancing at the oven. "I can't remmeber the last time this oven had actual food in it that wasn't pizza. Never, I think."

"That's why I had trouble finding a dish," replied Jo, crossing over to the oven and looking in through the glass. "I ended up using the one which Mrs Robertson from the Marshall store gave me the meatloaf in." She looked back at Chandler, who was busy unpacking his own groceries, "I must give that back to her; I've had it such a long time."

"What're you making?"

"Shepherd's pie. The store was out of beef."

"With real shepherds?" he asked. "Don't their hats and crooks get stuck in the throat?" Jo smiled at him widely, to indicate she knew he had joked. She was glad she had agreed to move in with him in the end, and glad she had made the decision before Marshall was blown up by environmental terrorists: they got on well, and it wasn't awkward like it might have been. Jo put it down to the heart to heart they had had on the way home. He still loved Monica; that was now very obvious. And yes, he was like a brother, prone to joke-telling and easy for her to get along with.

"Yes. The police will be here soon looking for me on murder charges," she replied. "Their first clue was the herds of lambs blocking up country roads."

"Plead guilty," Chandler continued, "cos you know you're baaaaaad."

"That was a bad one," Jo replied, turning off the oven. "Want some?"

"Now you've offered," said Chandler, "I'd love to. But I wouldn't want anyone to think that I'm concealing the evidence." He walked over to her and looked in the oven. "It smells delicious. I could be tempted. What's in it? As well as, of course, shepherds."

"Lamb," replied Jo, using a teatowel to take out the pie and putting it carefully on the work surface. "Lamb in gravy with vegetables at the bottom, then topped with mashed potato. I apologise in advance though," said Jo, taking out another plate from the cupboard for Chandler, "I'm not the best cook on the planet. Though my boys like it."

"And that was them on the phone?" asked Chandler, taking his plate and some cutlery from the rack over to the table. "Your family are well?"

"Yes," Jo replied, following him. "The boys have a countdown calendar for me coming home."

"Sweet," said Chandler, taking his fork in his left hand and using it like a spoon to scoop up the pie. "And this is good."

"You don't have to say that just 'cos I'm sitting here," she replied, frowning. "It's a little overdone, I'm sorry." He looked up at her.

"No, it's fine. Anyway," he added, "I'm sorry I've had to work late this week – we've had a lot to do with the drill programming – all of the data I configured before Christmas needs to be redone as the board want us to begin in a different place."

"Oh?" That was news to her, although Nathan didn't report everything to them immediately. Engineering saw the start of any new prospective development and also the end, analysing rock, gas and oil samples to inform the work and certify the raw. However, Chandler working late was not the reason she hadn't come up to his office to wait for a lift back to the apartment. It was more that she felt embarrassed by the last time she had come up and she didn't want any of Chandler's work colleagues, especially Steve Silverman, who knew her from the company induction, to pass comment along the lines of "English Prig" either to her, or to Chandler. She hadn't so much kept her living arrangements a secret, even to Kathy, who had asked in the spirit of compassion – she knew Jo lived at Marshall – but Jo wasn't exactly advertising the fact either.

"We're starting five miles further west than we thought," he continued between bites. "I've got to go to the New York State site to look at their programming data next Wednesday for a coupla days, once I've got ours straight. Our, or well, should I say, my programme has been commended and is being used as an example to all of our sites - "

" - that's great! - "

"So, will you be alright by yourself for a few days? I'm planning on going down to the city to see Jack. He's understudying on Saturday night, which might mean he'll be on stage then too. I wanna give him my support."

"That's great," replied Jo, "Yes. No problem. There's security here – the security at Marshall was shockingly lacking - " Chandler grinned before scooping up the last bit from his plate. "There's a bus to work, and one to town. I'll be able to walk around here singing teeny-bop songs in just my undies - "

"Just kidding," she said, laughing to herself at the ludicrous idea as she finished off the last of her food. Chandler grinned in disbelief at what he'd heard her say. "It'll be Nirvana."

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It was a week later and Jo was feeling decidedly lonely. It was surprising how you got used to someone being around and she was noticing the lack of Chandler now, after he had flown east to Wayne County, New York on Wednesday night.

She hadn't danced in her underwear. She hadn't done anything outrageous at all, or anything even boringly normal. Instead, Jo had just spent the last two days going to work, analysing rock samples, getting analytical reports from the lab and cross-referencing them on a large map of the Bakken and gone back to the apartment again. It was only now, a week later, that she realised she was waking up in Chandler's apartment alone.

Newtown called, and once she had done an "E.T." and phoned home, the boys having now got back from their swimming lessons as it was late afternoon in England, Jo decided it was time to go and see what the town offered. She had gone through it several times, for that was the bus route to work, and had noticed a bank, a post office, several thrift shops as well as a Walmart and other grocery shops.

The bus dropped her off half an hour later outside Walmart and, without looking where she was going, stepped on a person's foot.

"Hey, why don't you watch where you're going?" said a woman's voice. Jo turned to apologise profusely – she was looking around her so much she really wasn't looking where she was going, and looked into a face she knew.

"Mrs Robertson?" she asked the cross lady, looking down at her foot. "I'm so sorry, how clumsy of me."

"Dear?" she asked. "Is that you? Miss Lucas? From the trailer park?"

"I still have your meatloaf dish," said Jo, rather randomly. "But...Marshall..."

"Luckily, we have a house here in Newtown," replied Sarah Robertson, looking round and smiling towards an elderly gentleman who Jo took to be Mr. Robertson. "The shop and all is gone," she said, "but luckily we were staying with Sandra and her family down in Bismarck. It's really quite terrible," she added, "but predictable."

"Who's this?" asked Mr Robertson, looking over to Joanna and taking off his spectacles. "Do we know her?"

"She's Miss Lucas, dear," Mrs Robertson replied, "she lived in a trailer in Marshall. She's English." Mr Robertson looked at Jo, then looked her up and down.

"Well, I never," he replied, looking back to his wife and putting back on his spectacles. "She don't look Amish."

"English, Robert, dear, ENGLISH!"

"English?" he looked at her again. "English? Tell her we don't want any! We fought a war to stop English...redcoats...like her..." he trailed off into silence, still staring at Jo, hostilely.

"Ignore him, dear," soothed Mrs Robertson. "He gets funny ideas. Are you going anywhere in particular? I was born here, you know. My father was a farmer." She turned to her husband. "So was his. Our farms neighboured one another, just north of Bismarck. Long sold, you know," she added. "He didn't want to farm; neither did I. We worked hard for our land, we did."

"Yes," nodded Jo, listening. There wasn't much else you could do when an older person began to talk. She would be like that, one day. In fact, Jo thought to herself, as Sarah Robertson continued to tell her how they wanted to begin a shop because it was indoor work, she was already like that – she could hear herself with her eldest, giving examples, telling longer-winded stories about her life than used to about things she thought mattered.

"So, you can claim your seven-eleven on your insurance?" prompted Jo, feeling Mr Robertson still staring at her suspiciously.

"Yes," conceded Mrs Robertson, patting her headscarf in place. "But it'll never be the same, if we do ever open up another one, it won't be what we've worked on for sixty years. And, you know, thinking about that explosion, I just wonder, do we even want to? I'm seventy seven now, dear. And Robert's a year older."

"What?" Robert Robertson leaned forward, as if his wife was now about to get herself in cahoots with the one-woman English invasion party.

"We-don't-want-to-begin-our-shop-again..." emphasised Sarah, to her husband, "although," she added, sotto voce, leaning towards Joanna, "I told you before that it was expected. Environmentalists, like your company says? Pah!"

"You don't think so?" asked Jo, intrigued. So if not environmentalists, who did they think did it?"

"No, environmentalists," insisted Sarah Robertson, "or at least, not on their own. Encouraged by a lot of greenbacks..."

"Greenbacks?" asked Jo, confused.

"You know," she said, pointing to her handbag, "greenbacks...money! The man from Exxon was flashing those around a lot in our shop. I told him to go away – we wouldn't be bought." She pulled nearer Joanna, a triumphant smile on her face. "They think that we are deaf and dumb when they come to our shop. They think that we do not hear what they say even when they come in broad daylight. But, you know, it wasn't a coincidence that we got as far away as we could over the holidays..."

"Right," said Jo, nodding in agreement.

"You know it's terrible, dear," she continued, frowning, "there's still people living there, in Marshall, even though the company says that it's uninhabitable."

"Oh, my word!" Jo exclaimed, truly horrified. She knew there was a poverty problem – men working at Continental would have enough money to go out drinking every weekend leaving very little to live on, and worse, their family to live on, unless their wives could get some money off them beforehand. Some families, she deduced, clearly had not got a lot of choice. And maybe would do some things not a little bit immoral to boost up the family finances...

"English?" clarified Mr Robertson again, looking Jo in the eye as if he was trying to work her out. Before Jo could ask Mrs Robertson what she meant by what she had said, about someone from Exxon and buying with greenbacks, a bus pulled up alongside them. The doors opened. A few people from the queue which had formed behind Mr and Mrs Robertson pushed past them and streamed into the bus.

"Well, this is us," said Mrs Robertson, as her husband went to join the queue. "Back to Bismarck – it was lovely to see you, dear," she added. "Take care of yourself."

"You both too," Jo added, nodding at the old woman who had fed her when she had lost her purse, and had, on more than one occasion, to Jo's knowledge, stood up to rowdy, lairy, drunken Marshall residents by refusing to serve them. Then added, "your meatloaf dish!" as both ex-store-owners sat down on the assisted seating near the front.

"Keep it, dear," called back Mrs Robertson, as her husband muttered, "Amish?" as the bus pulled off.

"The man from Exxon and greenbacks," thought Jo to herself, a few hours later and laden down with her fruitful and very cheap shopping trip to the thrift store. The bus going to the apartment complex pulled in as the dusk marched ever closer to night. Lights were being switched on in Newtown, and the town she had never visited, but had stayed in for nearly six hours that Saturday afternoon began to look very pretty.

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"I need a word, Joanna."

It was the third week of January and Jo had been down at the analytical lab checking over the results of a sample of gas extracted from the lower "C" layer at Westbury when her boss had demanded to see her immediately.

In the last fortnight Chandler had come back from Manhattan, beaming in delight over his son's appearance on Broadway, and telling her he had had a great time with Joey, Monica, Ross and Rachel, who had all come over, in the end, to support Jack. Her boss's face did not exactly show that the words were going to be pleasant and he took her right out of the Engineering block before he began the tirade.

"You! I can't believe what you did!" Not only was he not happy but, rather, he was livid. Jo felt her heart sink. What had she done?

"You! Embarrassing me in front of the board!" he shouted, answering her silent question. "Why didn't you tell me that your cross-referencing on your map was loco? You've made me look an idiot! And I wanna know why!"

Jo said nothing for a moment, as she thought over what he had just said – what he had just blasted – at her. Her calculations were incorrect? That couldn't be right. They were lauded for their work by Bob Samuels himself at Christmas; Nathan had got his award for it. Yes, she had done it, and Chandler had been affronted that their team leader was singled out for praise, but -

" - did you do it on purpose, to try to show me up? Because, I know you did the data and I know you were angry you didn't get mentioned at the Christmas roundup...did you think I wouldn't notice, or find out?" He shoved the maps into her chest with force and Joanna took a step back to stop herself from falling over, uncrumpling them.

"I've...I've never seen these before," she said, "not this one, at any rate. These..." she said, holding the ones she had worked with on Thanksgiving Day, "are what I used for the proposal. Never seen this one before, Nathan." The growl of dissatisfaction from her boss's throat made her see that he didn't believe her. And yet, Chandler said there'd been errors in his calculations – and she knew that the company had been basing the Westbury data on that which she had originally calculated. Some of the assays from the oil and gas had not yielded as high percentages of fuel as she would have expected, either.

"Well, fix it," he said, "and fast. Herring's orders," he added, bitterly.

"Herring?" asked Joanna, but he pushed her out of the way with one hand.

"Never mind; get on with it, fast, or else..."

Jo didn't wait to ask, "else what?" and she hurried back into Engineering as Nathan Daniels kicked a stone heavily into the closing door.