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Chapter 13

"Is this the last place yet, Yasha?"

Bucky could see the exhaustion in Thea's face as she looked up at him hopefully. She had nearly lost all of the sparkle that she had gained after their wedding. He had worked so hard to keep finding things she would enjoy: the iconostasis at the Church of Sveti Spas in Skopje, the frescos in the Cathedral of St Tryphon in Kotor, the Museum of Religious Art in Zadar…now today in Constanta the Cathedral of St Peter and Paul. Those were almost the only times that he saw her eyes light up with anything approaching joy or happiness. It was the only spark of, well, anything that he had managed to bring her so far. More often than he wanted to admit, the misery of it all made him feel like giving up and becoming the final victim of the Winter Soldier. However, he couldn't allow himself to be a p**** about it. He didn't hope for redemption, but he did intend to go out having spent every day keeping Thea safe. Единственная цель, которую он оставил, быть телохранителем для его прекрасной девушки. (The only purpose he had left was to be a bodyguard for his beautiful one.)

For three months now, every week he had managed to find some church somewhere that she could attend without greatly endangering their safety. She had stopped saying anything about him angrily inhabiting his seat on the pew as he glared up at the Tabernacle like it owed him a debt. It was always the most painful, uncomfortable hour of every week for him. If he weren't afraid to leave her unattended in some unknown church each week, then he'd just sit on the steps outside like a vagrant and wait for her. It didn't help his mood that she was always happier and friendlier with him after they went.

She had finally begun regularly using his cover name, or at least his nickname, without making a face and almost seemed resigned to every move they had to make. She would quietly clean her gun without complaint and get through her dry firing practice rapidly, so she could get away from the gun as quickly as possible. She could finally recite all three of their major safety protocols without fault. She was now proficient with two different defensive knife moves. He had even taught her how to use her cane in one big surprise push to hopefully give herself time to get away from an attacker. He ought to feel better. She was listening to him and practising whatever he taught her. However, she hated every minute of it, which hurt him in a way that he didn't know how to handle.

She had begun to fall asleep nearly as soon as they laid down at night and she rarely seemed inclined to do anything more than tuck her face into his chest as she slept. There had been nothing more than his desperate, impassioned kisses in the whole of their short four-month marriage and he began to wonder if that was all he was ever going to get. Not that he should ever complain. She was beautiful and she had chosen him, but she had been honest. She quietly put up with his bad days when he could do little more than bark orders at her in basic English mixed with Russian. She accepted the worse days when he was paranoid and belligerent. To his mortification and sorrow, she had even learnt to immediately shift out of the bed when he had one of his violent nightmares from which he would awake ferocious and angry. He had known he was being shockingly selfish in tying her permanently to him. He was pretty much the definition of a broken man. She deserved so much better.

"Yasha?"

Bucky shook his head to bring his focus back and replied, "It is not. We have to move again."

Just as he expected, her shoulders sagged as she answered, "Oh. When?"

"A few days."

She didn't even ask with hope, but she still asked, "Is the next move the last?"

Bucky leant forwards so his hands were propped on his knees as he watched her. This was such a f***ing disaster. "I will tell you when we are in the final destination."

She sighed, but didn't lift her eyes from her lap as she asked, "Why can't you tell me more?"

He gave his standard reply, but it was getting harder to believe himself. "Security. I don't know who is listening."

"Well, aren't we going to run out of money soon? We can't go on like this forever, can we?"

He was not about to explain to her how they were funding their lifestyle. The sooner they got to Minsk the better. Once he could support her honestly, he would feel a little more like a man than a bum. "Money is not a problem right now, Bella. Please don't worry about it."

Bucky watched Thea as she sat down on a chair and looked out the nearby window. "Constanta is pretty. I like it here."

Memories of that long mission made him nearly shiver. He hated the Romanian coast. Hated it. "I never did. I've been here before."

"Oh. Well, I like it. I'm sorry that you don't. I hope that the next place is pretty, too. I hated the last three cities."

He took a deep breath and replied seriously, "I haven't been choosing them for their beauty, kitten."

Thea looked at him with complete understanding. "Yeah, I know. How long has it been since you saw someone?"

Well, he didn't just see them, did he? But that was all she knew. "Forty-three days."

"That is good, right?"

Bucky grunted with frustration. "Yes, but it takes only one person to see me and know who I am. We can't relax, Bella. My profile was put out on the internet when all the SHIELD-HYDRA data was dumped. If someone was looking for me, they would have pictures and physical description, etc. It wouldn't be that difficult, which is why we have to follow every protocol that I have set out."

She didn't bother to reply to his comment about protocol, of course. She knew it by now, since even he had to admit he harped incessantly on it. Instead, she asked with surprise, "Your missions? Are they out there?"

Bucky got up from the old, vinyl covered armchair and replied, "That was not on that data dump or someone removed it. I have scoured the internet, including the dark web. I haven't found anything yet."

Now she asked with disbelief, "You really want to know?"

Did she think that he would run and hide? He might be an assassin, but he wasn't a coward. He would stand and take his punishment like a d*** soldier. "Of course, I want to know. I need to know, Bella. I have to understand what I did and to whom and where. That is my duty to know my crimes."

Standing up and wandering over towards him, Thea sighed, making his stomach lurch as he saw her deep sadness. "Ok. I actually do understand why you want to know, but I just worry about how you will be when you find something out." She slumped into the chair next to the one he had just vacated and closed her eyes. "I miss my family. My brothers. My cousins. I even miss my annoying auntie, who always asked me if I was ever going to get married. Now I can't ever phone them or even visit. Maybe I never can. They will never meet you. I want to have my family a part of our life and it is awful that they cannot."

A wave of crushing guilt with which he was all too familiar threatened to overwhelm him as he muttered, "That is my fault. If I hadn't chosen your apartment to break into then…"

Then she replied, saying something that absolutely shocked him. "I don't regret being here with you, Yasha. I don't. If you hadn't come to my door then I would never have known you. I don't like to even think of that. It is too horrible to contemplate."

How could she not regret being with him? How could she not feel that he was the worst thing to ever happen to her? "What am I offering you that makes it worth giving up your family, Bella? You can't settle down somewhere and make friends or anything that matters to you. You can't ever return to your career. I have taken you right out of your life and given you very little in return."

"Maybe not, but I have you." Thea smiled at him sweetly, but he could see her smile didn't reach her eyes.

"That is not much of a trade."

She replied with such honesty that he could not make himself disbelieve her. "I think it is. I want to be wherever you are."

Why would she want that? He had nothing to offer, but more of what made her so unhappy. The pain in his chest almost too much to bear, Bucky growled. "So I can do what for you? What do your days contain anymore? Nothing." He started to pace the floor as he raged, "Я как вурдалак. Я сосал от тебя всю радость. Вы даже не можете завершите наш брак. Я пустая трата человека. (I am like a blood-sucking ghoul. I have sucked the joy right out of you. You cannot even bear to complete our marriage. I am a waste of a person."

Thea turned in her chair to face the window again as he increased his frenzied pacing, which made him even more upset. After a while, he punched his hand into the bathroom door and then said roughly, "I am going out."

She nodded but did not turn around. He knew when he exited the hotel that she was probably watching from the window and hoping that he would look back, but he didn't let himself do it. Constanta had brought out more memories than Bratislava, Skopje, and Zagreb combined. He had spent too much time here before. He knew the mission and he remembered his victims, but he didn't have all of the memories yet. He wasn't even sure when it had happened. Until he was certain that someone would not recognise him, they shouldn't spend too much time there. They should move on to Minsk. That would be safer. He did remember everything about Minsk and, as awful as the memory was, he knew there was no one living to identify him.

Bucky stalked down the street adjacent to their hotel and had a sudden memory of a row of shops in the part of town a bit north of there. He was pretty certain that there was a dress shop when he was last there. It all could have been years ago, but he didn't think so. It felt recent. He burst off in that direction, wondering if he would even be able to choose some item that she would like. Her family was very wealthy, so she had been used to very expensive clothing before he dragged her off into his personal disaster. What did girls even like now?

When he got to the area of town that he remembered, however, it was very different. His memory had shown dress shops and other small stores. All he saw were glossy modern shop fronts. Those were not the sort of places he could go. Apparently, the mission in Constanta had been much longer ago than he imagined. Therefore, he passed them by and continued to the end of the street where he saw a flower shop. That he could handle.

However, when he left the place twenty minutes later, Bucky wondered how he was so incompetent at normal life that he could even f*** up buying his wife some flowers. The poor shopkeeper had looked so upset that she was probably going to cry after he left. Yet another thing that he was too vicious to handle: flowers. He stalked down successive streets and made his way back to their hotel. As he crossed a street and angrily gestured to a passing driver, he noticed a small pastry shop. Thea loved sweets. He could do that. When he exited the pastry shop, he breathed out forcefully and gripped the small white box along with the flowers. The man had intended to be kind—teasing him in a friendly tone that Bucky must either have a very romantic evening planned or he had put a foot wrong. He had not confirmed anything, but the man seemed to know perfectly well which of the two was the case. He had directed Bucky to buy several items that he promised had made his own wife feel more romantic after his own missteps. Bucky didn't actually think that pastry was a likely balm for Thea's unhappiness. Yet, it was not going to hurt either.

The closer he got to the hotel, the more unpleasant his nervousness became. He had to do something to make her happier. It was eating him alive to see her sad so often. He couldn't comfort her and he couldn't give her any normalcy. What could he give her that mattered? She had given him back more of himself than she could possibly imagine.

Walking around a skinny, pimply young man who seemed quite unnerved by him, Bucky wondered if he was ever going to be able to handle normal social interaction. He slowly walked up the narrow steps and then approached the door to the hotel room with deep apprehension. When he walked in, he could smell that she had taken a bath, so he wondered if she had already gone to sleep. It was too early.

"Bella?"

"I'm in here."

He walked through to the bedroom and saw that she was in bed already, which she had never done before. He tried to control his fear, as he wondered what she meant by getting in bed before 8 o'clock and without him at least in the room. Bucky placed the flowers on the table and attempted an awkward apology, "I am sorry that I lost my temper and raged out. I needed to calm down."

She replied in a quiet voice very unlike normal, "Those are really lovely." Thea slipped out from the covers and he realised that she was wearing the silky nightdress that he had seen in the green duffel for months, but that she had never worn for him. It was difficult to find words as he watched her.

As she stood in front of him, but leaning over to smell the small bouquet, Thea said almost apologetically, "You didn't have to bring me flowers. I understand."

He could hear that she was trying to mend fences and keep him from being angry, but he didn't want that. He had been the one to f*** up (as always) so he should be the one to fix things. "I wanted to give you something, Bella. I bought you a treat, as well. I've never had any of it, but the man said his wife loves them. I hope you like it."

As Thea smiled and took the box that he was holding out awkwardly, he wondered again what she meant anything by going to bed without him. Perhaps they were going to shift into a new even less pleasant stage of their marriage. Maybe he was about to get demoted to sleeping on the floor.

"Let me look." She opened the box and then smiled. "Yummy, we should eat them now." He felt her small hand grab his and allowed her to pull him to the table. He dragged out a chair and sat down, pulling her on top of him.

"I bought them for you." He ran his hand along her hair and added, "You have not had much other than basic food in weeks."

"Neither have you. Come on, let's share them. That makes it more fun." She dug into the box and held out a fluffy white thing that looked ridiculously sweet. "Take a bite."

Bucky looked at her and saw that she would he hurt if he refused, so he took a small bite of the thing she was holding out to him and then said mendaciously, "It is good."

She laughed merrily, in the way he had not heard in a couple of months, and said, "Oh dear, do you not really like sweets? Ok, I'll eat that one. You have to try them all though. Maybe this chocolate thing."

He dutifully took a nibble of the chocolate covered pastry and made a valiant effort not to gag.

Thea's eyes widened in surprise and she hastened to take it from him. "Oh, you don't have to eat it! Here give it back. You don't like chocolate, do you?"

"Apparently not."

She tilted her head and asked tentatively, "Okay, do you want to try the last one? You don't actually have to, Yasha."

"Let me try." Bucky took a small bite and then a larger one. "I like this one."

"Ok, so it seems you like nuts. That is a good thing to know. Well then, you eat that one and I'll eat these." She slid back on his lap so that she was leaning against his shoulder, which she had not done since shortly after they married. Bucky didn't think he cared what disgusting pastries he had to eat if she would stay like that for a while. "Thank you for getting these. I hadn't realised how much I miss this sort of thing."

Bucky kissed her head right above her ear and whispered, "I have definitely missed this."

Thea tried to wipe the sugar from around her mouth but laughed when she realised that she had got it everywhere. Her answer, however, was very serious and quite shut his brain down for a moment. "Obviously, I have too. You haven't been very cuddly. It's been fairly awful, really."

He looked at her with confusion. "Whenever I tried to get close to you at all, Bella, you seemed very uncomfortable. Since I don't ever want to pressure you, I just stopped doing anything that I thought you didn't want."

Thea hummed sadly and then sighed. "Oh dear. I cannot imagine how you thought I would want you to act like giving me a kiss would actually give you the plague. You have been angry, grouchy, and so filled with self-hatred that I haven't really known what to do. Why don't we communicate at all?"

"Communication was never a strength of mine. Not even in the before time. Even less now. I read body language, which has usually been sufficient."

She laughed bitterly and then replied, "It might work when you don't have your own agenda or preconceived notions about the person you are trying to read, Yasha, I can believe that. However, you always assume that I don't even like you or that I don't want to be here with you anymore if I even ever did or that I can't possibly actually want to have married you. You clearly haven't the least idea what I want or what I am feeling."

Bucky gripped her hands in his and held her tightly to his chest as he whispered into her ear, "Tell me?"

Thea took a deep, sobbing breath and replied, "Well I do want to be with you, you total plonker. You really are an idiot, you know. I do want you to hold me and I definitely want you to…potseluy menya? Did I say that at all right?"

Bucky turned her more towards him on his lap and saw her hopeful expression as he said, "Да, моя дорогая, это было правильно. (Yes, my darling, that is correct.)" He kissed her lightly and when he felt her arms wind round his neck, he pulled her in closer. "Ты прекрасна, моя красотка. (You are perfection, my beautiful one.)" He lifted her up and said seriously, "Are you very tired? I have never seen you go to bed this early before. You aren't starting another flare, are you?"

She shook her head, but he noticed that she was avoiding looking at him. He knew that she tried to avoid admitting when her body was betraying her with the RA. She plucked at the sleeve of his t-shirt as he carried her across the room and said evasively, "No, not really. But you weren't here and I had no idea when you would be back. Sometimes you take a really long time when you go out."

He frowned as he stood looking down at watched her and then laid her lightly on the bed. "Yes, but you have never gone to bed without me here before, Bella. You aren't telling me everything, kitten."

"I just felt miserable. I just thought I'd have a bath and then a little kip before you returned. You usually take really long walks or whatever you do when you get like that. Two hours or more sometimes. I planned to be back up before you returned."

Bucky sat down next to her and, as he reverently stroked her bare shoulder with the tip of his forefinger, said with a crack in his voice, "You don't need to apologise for taking a nap, Bella. I am only concerned because this is not usual behaviour for you."

"I know. Do we have to be so difficult all the time, Yasha?"

He placed a kiss on her jaw right below her ear as he said sadly, "I don't want that either, krasotka. I never wanted us to be like this. I don't know what to do though. It is always you who have to be generous with me, which is very unfair, but you will have to do so again. Tell me what you need, since I will never figure it out on my own."

Her voice was very fragile as she replied with embarrassment, "Ok, but you are awfully difficult to suss out, too. Your happiness matters to me. It matters so much."

He didn't know what she expected, but he had to try something. "Ok. I will try, but I don't know what I am doing." He looked down at her and asked, "Did you like the treat?"

Thea smiled and looked up at him warmly as she said, "Yes, but I hadn't finished the chocolate one yet, but I definitely will."

He replied seriously, "Do you want me to get it for you?"

"Well, yes, obviously. I don't know how you don't like chocolate, but I love it."

He crossed the floor quickly and brought the pastry box over to her. "Why don't you finish it while I take a shower?"

Quickly opening the box back up and pulling out the last few bites of the chocolate, she said happily, "Thank you. Golly this is excellent. You know what I would really, really love, Yasha?"

Surprised, he asked hopefully, "What is it, kitten?"

"Couldn't we go have our breakfast out in the morning like we did in Khaskovo? That was so nice. I miss having a proper cup of tea in the morning, you know?"

Bucky did know, but there was little he could do about it. He couldn't drag a tea kettle round with them. "We could probably do that on the day we leave, since we would have all our bags and could leave immediately if there is trouble."

"Is that why we only did that on our last day in Khaskovo? I hadn't realised. Well, I'd like that anyway."

He watched her carefully, noticing her disappointment, and shook his head. "Unless there is a problem, then we will. I'll be out soon." He surged into the bathroom and dropped his clothing on the floor quickly. He laid two guns on the sink and his knife inside the shower and then stepped in. As he rapidly washed out his hair and hurried to scrub down, Bucky considered what she had said about his lack of affection. It genuinely had not occurred to him that she would misunderstand that way. Now he understood that he ought to have talked to her, but too often he didn't comprehend things with her until afterwards. Talking did not come easily to him at all, especially when he feared the answer. He knew he needed to explain things to her. If he avoided this conversation after she had essentially pleaded with him to be more open, then it would be only his fault when things truly imploded. Better go ahead and do it now.

He stepped out and made quick use of his towel before wrapping it around himself and snatching up his knife and guns. He'd forgotten to bring his change of clothes in as he usually did. He knew she got embarrassed easily, so he never changed in front of her. He had not told her how he had noticed her determined attempt to preserve both his and her own modesty the day he had barged into his apartment. There probably wasn't another girl on the planet who would reacted quite that way. After all, he had just been an injured assassin forcing her to help him. In retrospect, he understood her perspective and why she had been so uncomfortable, but at the time he had not been allowed privacy in so long that he had forgotten the concept.

Bucky tossed his clothing over next to the duffel bag. They badly needed washing, so he'd have to do that later. As he dug in the bag for his clothing, he heard a sound behind him and turned. Thea was standing with the pastry box in her hand and watching him with obvious nervousness. It struck him that she had not seen him without a shirt on since that first day when she cleaned his wounds. They had been married over four months and his wife was nervous about seeing him without a shirt. Пиздец!

He dropped his shirt and socks on the bag and crossed the floor towards Thea, who looked frightened as he wrapped one arm around her and pressed her up against the wall. "Bella, ты сводишь меня с ума (You are making me crazy). I have no idea what to do with you."

"Why are you angry?"

As his arm tightened and pulled her closer, he growled into her ear. "This is not angry, krasotka."

She shivered slightly as she replied, "You look very angry."

He shook his head and looked seriously at her. "Not angry." He lowered his head and kissed her, which led her jump up to try to put her arms around him. This made him laugh as he leant his forehead down on hers. "You are like a…I don't know how to say it...a Фея (faerie)…you are so short."

He could hear that she was annoyed as she replied, "You are just too tall."

Smiling down at her, he asked, "Would you rather I was shorter?" He then picked her up and swung her onto his lap as he sat down on the bed.

Her voice was very high pitched as she replied, "Not really."

Bucky laughed again, knowing she was nervous but not scared. "Good. I can't really change that, can I?"

"Were you always this tall and, you know, everything?" She gestured wildly in the air with her hand, which amused him so much that he grabbed her hand and kissed it.

He flopped down on the bed, trying to keep himself calm. Talking about the changes that he had never wanted usually brought a rush of anger and hatred out of him, but he did not want to feel like that now. "No, I didn't get taller, but I was already sufficiently tall. However, I got broader and much more muscular. Other things changed too, but that doesn't matter."

Thea bit her lips together and stared at him for a moment before she said, "Well it is a good result."

Laughing again at her comment, Bucky pulled her down to lay next to him. "I'm glad you think so. Again, I can't really change it."

Her voice got very small as she said, "I don't want you to. I wish I could change me though."

"Bella, if you got any more beautiful, men would spontaneously combust when they saw you. Don't you dare change." He smiled as he saw her eyes go wide and her cheeks flame red with embarrassment. "I've never known anyone who embarrassed as easily as you, krasotka. Does it make you that uncomfortable to know that I find you very beautiful?"

She looked away as she replied, "I don't know. I suppose I'm glad you do."

He lifted her chin, so he could look into her eyes. "I do. I noticed it the moment I entered your apartment. It was not something I expected. You were a волшебница (enchantress). Your words were like… колдовство…magic is the best way to say it. Everything was so strange and new that I didn't even understand what it was until the next day. That was when I saw you leaving on your crutches and I felt you were escaping and HYDRA would find you."

Incredulous, Thea asked, "You mean when I was trying to find the loo?"

Bucky shrugged. If he was going to tell her at all then it was time to explain it now. "I did not know that then. I just saw you escaping and I was terrified for you. Then I understood. Something I remembered from before came back and I realised that I loved you."

"You didn't look very loving, you know."

He nodded. "I know, I am sorry. It was a new concept let alone a strange new experience. All I could think of was that HYDRA was going to find you and kill you by torture and it was entirely my fault."

"I was so afraid of you then. You can be really scary."

Bucky propped himself up, so he could look down at her and replied with a mixture of humiliation and disappointment. "I know. I really am sorry. That is all still a part of me. It will probably happen again. I have seen how I sometimes frighten you when I don't mean to. I never mean to."

She bit her lip and looked down, so he knew she was trying not to upset him as she carefully thought out her answer. "Are you sure? You…well, you can be really intense when you are determined for me to obey you. I think you mean to scare me a bit then."

Bucky sat up and breathed out long and hard as he held his head in his hands. "Maybe I do. I don't know. There are times when I know that we need to do something my way because it will keep us safe. I don't consciously think about scaring you. I will try to be more careful next time."

Thea rolled over, so she was on her side facing away from him. "You like things done your way. That is just how it is with you. It isn't like I often try to go against you and I have never gotten away with it when I have."

A feeling of shame flashed over him as he heard her, and he turned back towards her. "Kitten, is that how it really is?"

"Yes. You know it is. I don't mind about most things, really. I trust you know what we need to stay safe. But you are really dictatorial sometimes even when it isn't really necessary."

Suddenly unable to withstand his emotions, he rolled Thea towards him as he laid down, so he was leaning over her. "I don't want you to feel scared of me, Bella. Not ever."

"I don't see how that is possible. I've seen you do things that are scary. So when you say to do something with that particular look you have, then I'm rather quickly going to do it."

"I would not harm you. I have never hurt you, Bella. I would not raise a hand to you, no matter how frustrated I am."

Thea raised a hand to his chest very lightly, which set loose such a flood of emotion through him that he closed his eyes as he tried to ride it out. "But now you are angry."

His jaws clenched as he tried to find his bearings, Bucky replied, "This is not angry, krasotka. This is very far from angry." He opened his eyes and looked down at Thea, but he could see that she was quite unconvinced. He placed his hand in her hair and lowered himself so close that she gasped nervously. He allowed all the raging emotions and desire that he felt to come out as he kissed her, trying as much as he was capable to show her just what he meant. Finally, as her hand fluttered on his chest, he pulled back and said with purposeful intensity, "This is what that is, not anger, Bella."

Bucky stared into the mirror at himself and shook his head in disbelief. He was…destroyed. Absolutely wrecked. How in the h*ll was he going to do all he had planned for that day? Obviously, he wasn't going to do a d*** thing but stay in their room with her once she was up. In all the time he had waited for her, it had never occurred to him that he would be the one so emotionally compromised when it finally occurred. She had drifted off to sleep in his arms, but he had no idea how long he had laid there looking at her last night. It was beyond his comprehension that he had once taken this so casually. He remembered Bonnie much better now than he had a few months ago. Comparing Bonnie's desperation to Thea's feminine perfection was like comparing a candle to the sun. Once she was awake, he was going to be useless to anything else than whatever she wanted him to do. He had to get what he could done before she awoke.

He shoved his arms through his shirt sleeves and pulled on his trousers and wondered if he should leave her a second knife. Yes, he would. That would still leave four for him. He'd already slipped her gun under her pillow where she would know to find it. She had got much better at how to quickly pull the weapon when they had practiced. Both of her knife manoeuvres were sufficiently effective. Perhaps he could convince her later to practice the move with her right crutch that they had been developing. She seemed to find it hilarious that she could actually defend herself with the outward symbol of her physical weakness. Bucky just didn't think there was any reason to waste good titanium rods when planning a defence, even better if they had handles.

He finished fastening his boot and stood up with a look in the mirror again. He should look different. He really should, considering how he felt. He turned away and strode out into the bedroom. He allowed himself a look at the bed and immediately realised that had been a mistake. He leant back against the wall and breathed deeply. Пришло время ему действовать, как мужчина. Ему нужно было найти контроль над его чувствами, или их брак погибнет. (It was time for him to be a man about it. He had to gain some control over his feelings or their marriage was going to die.)

AN: I apologise, but I have been quite ill. Therefore, it is possible that I shall have to slow my somewhat mad pace of daily updating if things are not stabilised soon. I am grateful to everyone who is continuing to read the story. Thank you, also, to those who continue to PM or review! Your comments are ever so encouraging. :-)