E-DAY plus 14 YEARS, 31 WEEKS

[Port Farrall, 1436 hours]

"Maria!" Dom's shout startled the other nomads in the room, but they settled down again at a gesture from Sharon. Dom fell to his knees beside Maria and wrapped himself around her. "Oh my God. Maria." He kept leaning away from her and then clutching her to him again, clearly torn between holding her and looking at her. "Maria, Maria, Maria. Oh God, Maria," he chanted, as though he couldn't say her name enough.

Everyone in the room looked away, not wanting to intrude on such an emotional moment.

Marcus was breathing deeply and had turned to the wall, probably to keep anyone from seeing whatever look was on his face.

Dom kissed her forehead, her hair, her forehead again, both cheeks and between her eyes. Sharon noticed that he avoided the dazed woman's mouth. Even in what must be a chaos of conflicting emotions, he wouldn't press a disabled woman for contact that was too intimate. Sharon's already high respect for the man jumped up a few notches. Through all this, Maria made very little movement of her own, hardly aware of him. She was obviously off somewhere in her own little world, and would have to be coaxed back out.

Sharon knelt next to her and put a hand on her shoulder. "Maria?" Maria gave no sign that she had heard Sharon. "Maria?" Still nothing.

Sharon looked up at Dom, who was silent now, but completely soaked with tears from eyes to chin. "Her reaction times are about a second or two slower than most people's, and she has a hard time focusing on objects more than a few feet away. It just takes her a little longer to process things." He nodded shakily. Sharon jiggled Maria's shoulder gently and used the name the woman had given when they'd gotten her to talk for the first time. "Mary?"

After a pause, Maria turned her face toward Sharon. "Hmmm?" Dom screwed his eyes shut at his wife's voice.

"Mary, darling, I need you to look at me."

It took a few moments, but Maria focused her good eye on Sharon's face. A beatific smile spread across her cheeks, the hideous scars pulling on the fabric of her expression like misplaced seams. "Shar'n," she slurred sleepily.

"Yes, Mary, it's Sharon." Maria pulled a hand free of her blanket and touched Sharon's cheek gently, like a very young child. Sharon took the hand and held on to it. "Mary, there's someone I want you to meet." Maria tilted her head curiously.

"A new friend?" she asked.

"No, Mary, an old friend."

"An old friend," Maria repeated. "Good. I like meeting old friends."

"Yes, meeting old friends is fun, isn't it?"

"Meeting old friends is fun," Maria echoed. Dom choked, realizing just how badly Maria's brain had been damaged. Marcus hunched his shoulders.

Sharon raised her eyebrows at Dom, clearly asking if he wanted her to continue. Dom nodded shakily.

"Mary, do you remember telling me about Donny?"

Maria smiled brilliantly. Her straight white teeth were still intact. "Donny. He smells like the earth. And col – colo –" she fumbled with the complex word.

Sharon provided it for her. "Cologne."

"Yes, cologne. He smells like the earth and cologne." Dom sucked in a hopeful breath. Marcus straightened up but didn't turn around.

"That's right, Mary." She held up a finger in front of Maria's eyes. "Look here, Mary." Maria squinted at the digit, her brown eye tightening more than the white one. "I want you to follow my finger, okay?"

"Okay."

Sharon slowly moved the finger sideways, Maria's eyes following its path, and Sharon brought it to rest against Dom's cheek. "This is Donny." Maria finally focused on the face of the man holding her. "Your old friend Donny."

Dom was at a loss for words. "I ... Maria, I ..." Everything he'd wanted to say to her in the last ten years tried to get out all at once, the words jamming up in his throat. "I ran out of cologne," he finished lamely.

Maria smiled lazily. "You still smell like the earth, though."

Dom's expression was half pain and half joy. "Yeah, that's because I'm dirty, sweetheart." It was true; the tears had left obvious clean streaks down his grimy face.

Maria giggled. Sharon looked shocked. "She's never done that before."

Marcus finally turned around. He bent down and put a hand on Dom's shoulder. Dom turned his head slightly but didn't take his eyes off Maria. "Dom, I'm going to find Hoffman and get you a couple of days off, okay?"

"Okay, Marcus."

"Mark!" Maria chirped suddenly. They all blinked in surprise. "Mark, Mark, Mark." She tapped Dom's chin. "Mark is an old friend, too." She rumpled her brow. "But he doesn't smell as good as you do."

Dom barked out a surprised laugh. Maria jerked once at the loud noise, eyes wide, and then she smiled again once she had processed the sound. "Am I funny, Donny?"

"Yeah, baby, you're funny."

She nestled her scarred head under Dom's chin, not seeming to mind the scratchy woolen shirt. She began playing with the COG tags lying on his chest. "I'm a funny girl," she said to herself. Dom closed his eyes.

"Ask Hoffman for at least a week," he told Marcus.

"You got it, Dom. Whatever you need." Marcus gave Dom's shoulder a final pat and strode off in search of the colonel, relieved to finally have a way to make himself useful.

Sharon arranged a bed of blankets for them. He laid Maria gingerly down onto it, left hand cradling her head, and then quietly removed the rest of his weapons and armor. He carefully laid himself down at Maria's side between her and the door and put his right arm under her head. Sharon covered them with some more blankets and then slipped away. Maria rested her head on his wide bicep and stroked his COG tags again. "You're very warm," she said.

"Yes, baby, I am." He ran his palm in soothing circles on her back.

Her scarred mouth trembled a bit, and she gripped the tags tightly. "I'm always so cold."

Dom tucked the blankets around her with his free arm. "Not anymore, honey. Not while I'm here."

Maria looked up at him hopefully. "You're going to stay?"

"Yeah, Maria. I'm going to stay."

"I'd like that," she said, and Dom saw a momentary flicker of intelligence pass through her good eye. "I'd like that very much." She lay her head back down and started humming to herself as she fiddled with his tags. Dom nearly lost it.

It was the tune to a nursery rhyme Maria had sung to their children every night before E-Day.

It took a full minute before he'd pulled himself together enough to reply. "I'd like that, too."