Nick's gloomy mood and darkly hooded eyes were getting truly annoying. "What's bugging you?" Luke finally asked him, trying not to sound irked. "It's a beautiful day, the kids are happy, you're free as a bird. So what's up?"

Nick regarded the children on the playground. Hannah was on a swing—she hadn't been allowed to use swings in Gilead, as they were only for boys, and she had been coveting them for years. Now she sailed as high as she could go, pumping her legs aggressively, her hair blowing madly around. Eight month-old Nichole sat in her stroller at his side, placidly eating Cheerios and watching the older children.

"She's not here."

"She'll get out," Luke said, always hopeful. "She'll find a way, sooner or later."

"She's supposed to be out now. We left Boston on the same day," Nick explained. "I drove to Vermont, to pick up Hannah, while June got in a delivery van. A friend of mine—from before—he owns a shop in Illinois, and exports dishwashers to Ontario through Detroit. Dishwashers, you know, with big cardboard boxes to hide in. I met up with him in Chicago, while I was stationed at the front. Anyway, long story short, I trust him. And he agreed to drive June over the border. But…it doesn't take this long to get to Ontario. Something went wrong."

Luke stared at him, simultaneously feeling optimism in his heart and dread in his belly. "You're just now telling me this?"

"I didn't want you to get your hopes up. Better to be surprised with good news than let down by bad news."

"But now you think it's bad news."

Nick exhaled heavily, craving a cigarette. He couldn't protect her long distance; in Canada, he had lost any control, any semblance of power, that he might have had. "Yeah. I think they caught her."

"And if they did catch her," Luke's mouth was dry, "they'd send her back to Boston?"

He really has no goddamned clue about how Gilead works. Should I tell him there are gallows on the shoulders of the highways, next to the checkpoints? "No," Nick said curtly.

The call came the following afternoon, while the two men were playing Uno with Hannah at the kitchen table. They had decided to teach her numbers first, before working on the alphabet and reading. Uno was a good starter game for numbers.

Luke looked at the cell phone ringing in his hand. "It's from Windsor, Ontario. Where's that?"

"Answer it," Nick said urgently. "That's the border with Detroit."

Realizing what that might mean, Luke answered and put the speaker on. "Luke Bankole."

A calm voice responded. "Good afternoon, Mr. Bankole. This is the Windsor Regional Hospital, Oulette Campus, Intensive Care Unit. I'm calling to tell you that your wife June is here with us."

Luke sagged in his chair, suddenly feeling light-headed, as if all the air had left his lungs. "Is she...?" he trailed off, unsure of whether to say "all right" or "alive." Nick bent his head and moved his lips as if in silent prayer. He still prays? Luke thought idly.

"She's in stable condition," the nurse assured him. "She has a gunshot wound on her left upper arm—just a grazing wound—that she got while crossing the border with Gilead. And she was dehydrated, along with, uh, other assorted issues, that kept her here for a few days. But she's being released tomorrow."

"I'll be right over," Luke said immediately.

"Well, actually, there's a representative from the American consulate here, who's been talking with her extensively and who has volunteered to drive her to Toronto tomorrow afternoon. He says—"

"Look, I haven't seen my wife in five years. Tell the Americans thanks, but I'll come and get her myself. With our daughter."

After hanging up, Luke gave Hannah a huge smile and explained that her mommy was coming home. But doubts swirled in his mind, perhaps inspired by all the awkward reunions he'd witnessed with Gilead refugees and their families. Why did it take her 'a few days' to get in touch with me? And why didn't she call me herself?

"Hey, before you leave, we should talk."

Nick had a way of stealthily entering a room which always ended up making Luke jump. "Damn, I hate it when you do that."

"Do what?"

"Sneak up on me."

"Sorry, old habit." Nick sounded mildly apologetic. As usual, he didn't attempt an explanation, but instead handed Luke a warm mug. The man did know how to make a good pot of coffee, Luke mused.

Nick continued, "Can I talk to you? Without Hannah around?"

"Yeah, but it's four hours to Windsor. I'm gonna leave tonight, maybe stop somewhere on the way so that we can be at the hospital bright and early tomorrow. I think Hannah would like a hotel, maybe an indoor pool or something. Her first road trip, you know."

"This won't take long." He tilted his head towards the porch.

The two men sat outside in the cool September air, coffee warming their hands.

"Will you be okay here alone with Nichole?" Luke didn't want to sound condescending, but an eight month-old could be challenging for someone unaccustomed to the routine.

"Sure. I have to learn. She's my responsibility now, not yours." Nick shrugged. "I can always call Moira, if I'm at a loss." He took a sip from his mug before continuing. "Before you see June, I thought you should know that she, uh, has made some decisions that might not make sense in Canada. Our choices were really limited."

"Yeah, I know you guys had it rough." Luke glanced at the other man. "Whatever she had to do to survive, I don't care."

"Really?" he muttered. That's what you say now. He took a breath. "June's pregnant."

"What?" Luke said slowly, wheels spinning in his mind. "That's not possible, I mean, Nichole is still a baby. Nobody gets, I mean, that's not a thing, how pregnant could she be?"

One hundred percent, Nick thought. Instead, he said, "About three months. A little more than that."

"Three months?! Nichole's only been in Canada for four, five months tops. What the hell? Her baby crosses the border, and she goes out the next day to do it all over again?"

"Luke, don't be mad at her."

"Her new commander? Lawrence, is that the guy who did it?"

Nick shook his head. "No, Lawrence wouldn't have touched her. Not his style."

"Waterford, then?"

"No." Nick took another sip of coffee, wishing he'd made himself something with a lot more alcohol instead. "The baby is mine."

"Uh…again? Really, again?" He laughed incredulously. "I mean, you guys just keep…I understood the first time, because Serena Waterford's gonna be on trial for that, you know? She forced you two to…conceive Nichole for her, I get that. It wasn't your choice."

"We thought you were dead," Nick reminded him.

"Yeah, I know. But, um," Luke covered his eyes with one hand, "I thought you were just friends with benefits?"

Nick furrowed his brow. "I don't know what that means."

"I thought you only did it once, to conceive a baby. That's what she told me on the cassette, that you 'helped her survive.' I thought she meant survive as a handmaid, by getting pregnant. I didn't know you kept on…" banging each other, he thought, but instead finished, "being together."

Nick considered his answer. June's spin on their relationship wasn't false, just incomplete. Her security was indeed the impetus for their early trysts. It was never just about that, but Luke didn't need to know that. There was no future for Nick and June as a couple; he'd told her as much just before their crossing. Either you'll die trying to get out, he'd whispered into her hair,tangling his sweaty limbs with hers, or I'll die trying, or we'll both die. Or else we'll both get out and you'll go back to the husband who loves you. Whatever happens, this is our last night together. There was no reason to tell Luke anything other than what he wanted to believe. He was June's husband, her future. Nick was her past, a searing reminder of the worst years of their lives. No matter how sweet their stolen moments together were, they were just that: mere moments in a sea of pain. Why complicate matters by telling Luke how strong their feelings for each other actually were?

"Handmaids," Nick explained, "get slapped, punched, kicked, electrocuted with cattle prods, raped, on almost a daily basis. It's all legal. You can torture them, cut off their hands, tongue, clitoris, whatever you want, as long as their uterus works."

Luke looked sick to his stomach. "Please stop."

"If they're pregnant, that all stops. Nobody can lay a finger on them, it's illegal. They even get fed well."

"Okay, I get it."

"Do you?" Nick shook his head, finished his coffee. "I don't think so. I don't think you can imagine living with that kind of fear." He looked around, at the carefree people laughing on their balconies. Canada was a different planet. "I love June. I know that doesn't matter now, it won't change anything, but in Gilead, I saw how she got treated every day, and it wrecked me. And there was nothing I cared about more than keeping her safe." Nick paused to emphasize the next sentence: "The only safe handmaid is a pregnant handmaid."

"So you two decided to get her pregnant again. After Nichole left."

"Yeah. Waterford was mad as hell at me for that—I held him at gunpoint all night while Nichole got away—so he got me sent to the front lines to fight. But just before I left, we…well. Anyway, I wanted to tell you before you saw her." He stood.

"Yeah, thanks." Luke stayed seated, his eagerness to get in the car and drive across Ontario suddenly gone.

"Don't be mad at her, okay? She loves you. You're her husband."

Very quietly, he asked, "You think June still thinks of me as her husband?"

Nick sat back down. "Yeah, she does." He searched his memory for an example. "After I came back from Toronto, when I met you in that bar? I went to her room to give her your message, that you loved her and would never stop. She cried, Luke. Cried and smiled at the same time. She almost never cries, even when they…she never cries. Except when she thinks about you."

Luke needn't have worried about June's feelings for him. He walked into her hospital room the next day, one hand on Hannah's shoulders and a red rose in his other hand, and she smiled that lovely toothy smile just like she always had. Her blue eyes glistened with tears as she held her arms out wide to them. Hannah hung back a little, as they had discussed on the way to Windsor, in order to let her father greet June first. Luke approached her, slowly at first, then stepping faster until he collapsed against her. Her warm body fit snugly against his, exactly as he remembered it. Her hair was longer than ever before but just as silky. Wordlessly, she kissed his wet cheek, his eyes, his forehead, before burying her face on his neck. In her arms, he was home again.

"Nothing's gonna hurt you, baby," he whispered as he rocked her gently back and forth. "Nothing's gonna take you from my side." Lines from a song they'd listened to over and over on their last, doomed car ride together, pushing their Subaru as far north as they could get. It was the last song he remembered singing with June, and he wanted her to understand they could pick up from the point they'd left off five years previously.

And his wife understood that.