Craig came out of his drowse as a shadow fell across his face. Anywhere else and he might have lashed out but, even though he'd been caught off guard, he knew exactly where he was… safely back in England, in a chair, seated at an ornate iron table, on a lawn in the back garden of the mansion. He squinted up into the late afternoon sun and recognized the outline of his section head, Colonel Reynolds.

Garrison started to rise only to be waved back. "As you were Lieutenant," he was ordered, and Reynolds took another one of the chairs that sat around the iron table.

"I'm sorry, sir, they had no right to call you out here like they did."

Reynolds spent several moments surveying his subordinate. "Actually, it wasn't their idea. And I must say, I believe they rather down-played your appearance for once."

There was a discrete cough behind them and both men turned. Sergeant Major Rawlins waited for Reynolds' nod of permission before he walked across the patio to deposit a bottle and two glasses on the table between the two men. Giving them both a salute he turned on his heel and walked back to disappear through the library doors.

Colonel Reynolds picked up the bottle and examined the label. "I'll pour." Glasses were filled and raised in mute salute. Reynolds turned his attention to the gardens as they each took their first sip of whisky. "I always did like the view from this terrace."

"Were you here before we took it over?" Garrison asked. He knew he'd never 'entertained' the Colonel out here. The man had covered for him, keeping check on them men while he was in the hospital after their one mission together but, at the time, the space had been used for hand-to-hand training and as a small-arms firing range for the men. He didn't think the view would be all that enticing.

"Several times. Celia Grant…"

"The owner's wife?" Garrison asked with a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach.

"… my second cousin." Reynolds raised the hand that held his glass and indicated the gardens in front of them. "They held their wedding reception out here." He took another sip from the glass and let the liquor burn its way down the back of his throat. "Seeing it for the first time with bars on the windows and being patrolled by armed guards was rather a shock."

Garrison fought the urge to drop his head into his hands as the tickertape listing damage to the property started to stream through his memory.

Reynolds let the man stew for a few moments before he chuckled. "Don't worry, Lieutenant. No one was very fond of those horrible statues." He raised his glass and took a sip, waiting for the American the do the same. "Aside from yourself, were there any other fatalities?"

Craig laughed over his next sip of whisky as relief flooded through him, and he shook his head. "They're all alive and well." A shoulder shrugged up and then dropped. "Some of them will probably be a little stiff for a while."

Garrison had been sent over to see if he could work out a treaty between two warring factions of the resistance. The dispute had resulted in people not being in place, which put agents in jeopardy, and messages being delayed or not getting out at all, so it was a problem. The report he'd radioed on his way back in had been brief; mission accomplished, Colonel Reynolds was here for the details.

"Old grudges", he told him. "The two leaders courted the same girl back when they were kids."

Reynolds' eyebrows went up in disbelief as he took another sip from his glass. "Old grudges indeed! As I recall from their files both men have families of their own, don't they?"

Craig took another sip of scotch before he continued the story. "Neither one of them 'got the girl'. She married someone else and moved out of the area. And, yes, each man went on to marry… apparently, neither one very happily, and have children of his own. Each one had lost his wife about the same time too, before the war started. For some inexplicable reason the old hatred raised its ugly head when they met up on a job… and every time they saw each other after that, it just got worse."

Reynolds graced the bottom of their glasses with another measure of spirits and they spent a moment silently enjoying the sunshine and the breeze that carried the scent of the gardens to them. "Continue," the colonel ordered as he settled more comfortably in his chair.

"I talked to members from both groups, anyone who would see me alone; that's where the intel on the two men came from. I had a private talk with each one of them too, but that didn't seem to get anywhere, so I arranged a meeting between the three of us…"

"Unbeknownst to the two protagonists, I assume?" Reynolds asked over the rim of his glass. "May I also assume your meeting didn't go quite as planned?"

Garrison gave a short laugh. "Not quite. And I'll never look at the heavy bag in the gym the same way again."

Colonel Reynolds studied the younger officer a moment. He knew there was more damage than just the bruises visible on his face. Every word of the polite tongue lashing he'd taken from the Italian conman had been deserved. Garrison should have had someone with him. But the orders had come from higher up. There was an operation pending, Garrison was already at command headquarters, and there was transportation available. Even though he'd requested it, the slight delay so that the man's team could be gathered had been denied. He waited for the American to take another sip of his drink and get started again.

"The fight started as soon as they laid eyes on one another. Trying to argue them into stopping wasn't doing any good. All I could do was get between them and stay there until they wore themselves out." Craig absently kneaded sore ribs as he finished off the second measure of whisky. He was surprised when Reynolds refilled his glass, and topped up his own. "Turned out that wasn't the brightest decision I ever made either. Things escalated and the knives came out. About the time it was either break both their necks or get myself killed other people started to show up."

With the typical British talent for understatement, Reynolds said, "That could have gone badly."

"It almost did. The first one on the scene was a brother…. The next one was a son." That put him between four antagonists. "But at least things slowed down a little as they decided who was going to hit who, and who was going to hit me."

Reynolds couldn't help but laugh at the last comment, and the glint of humor in Garrison's eye that went along with it. He waited on the rest of the tale.

"By that time people were rushing in from all sides. They'd just managed to shove everyone into their own corners, and pick me up out of the dust, when the daughter showed up. She headed straight for the son and, of course, they declared their undying love… Which got the whole mess started again," with him in the middle… "They were still kicking and screaming threats, but we finally managed to get them pulled apart again."

Reynold chuckled. "It sounds like Shakespeare's tale of the Montague's and the Capulet's…"

"The kids had been meeting on the sly while they tried to find a way to break the news. But with the feud between their father's getting worse and worse they couldn't figure out how to do it. So, Romeo and Juliette gave up about four months ago and just went ahead and got married."

"And you brokered a truce based on the merger of the two families?"

"Are you kidding!? Everyone else was overjoyed by the news and they let their guard down. Those two old bastards got away and went at it again. That's how I got these," Garrison touched the rim of his glass to his blackened eye and then across his face to the abrasion on the side of his jaw. "I was flat on my back between them when I came to." When he looked up at the men towering over him, each one had the other by the shoulder, each had a knife in his other hand, ready to strike. "I managed to grab an ankle in each hand and pulled them off their feet. But it was the girl who finally stopped them."

Reynolds leaned an elbow on the table, caught up in the story, "How?"

Craig shrugged and took a sip of his whisky. "She shouted at them."

Colonel Reynolds frowned, everyone had been shouting at them, he thought, and it hadn't done a bit of good, but after a moment's consideration the corner of his mouth twitched up and he asked, "What?"

"Papa, je suis enceinte! …"

The older officer sat back in his chair and laughed. "Yes, I can imagine that might do the trick."

"Don't count your chickens." Garrison warned, but he joined in the laughter. "An hour later and they'd already started arguing about where the kids were going to live, and who was going to build the cradle!"