Bemused by the success of his scheme, Isshiki was still deeply afraid of being stranded in the 1940s with only a sword, his phone, and three allies. He wasn't stupid enough to think that Troy wasn't going to come back, or that he wasn't going to report him, but he had no idea what to do next.

His friends had just driven off in a jeep, and he was stuck in some tiny neutral town...in North Africa...in the middle of a war. At least his room was nice. Mayor Banderas had been thrilled to host him, and while he wasn't blind to the blatant staring it didn't bother him as much as it used to.

The mayor's mansion was beautiful, even given the war, and there were servants stationed throughout, each one alarmingly attuned to things he needed. Even before he knew he needed them. Well-trained servants were apparently just like that, and having grown up without them, he was trying not to get freaked out when they appeared randomly.

When a chambermaid appeared, and he couldn't believe there was an actual chambermaid. She didn't speak any Spanish, he didn't know a word of Arabic, but he still ushered her into a sitting room chair and set up his supplies to capture her image. Sitting, frozen with a mixture of fear and confusion, she tried to stand as the mayor entered the sitting room.

"What is this?" He barked, but Isshiki waved the woman to sit down. Banderas stared at her, and then at the inked lines on the page. "Senor?"

"I am charged with understanding Spain," Isshiki replied, dipping the tip of the brush into the inkwell. He was going to run out of ink before he ran out of ideas. "And this is a mayor's household. It is just as interesting to my people as the city of Seville."

National and personal pride swelled the man's chest, and he barked a few words at the maid. She remained sitting, and Isshiki tried to focus on his art. He couldn't believe that this was coming in handy. He'd have to apologize to his uncle...and his mother. Mixing predominantly eastern styles with just enough western influences was going to make this the most interesting portfolio he'd ever done.

"Please, Senor, capture the beauty of Spain and her people, even in this war we remain aloof."

Spain still had a fascist leader in 1977 when the first Star Wars had come out, and they hadn't remained that aloof in the war. None of this was something Isshiki was supposed to know, so he smiled and nodded.

"We are a wonderful and welcoming people," he continued, "our food is renowned the world over, and we have such a rich history!" Isshiki continued to sketch the woman, listening with half an ear and stumbling over the unfamiliar words and phrases being thrown about. He had learned Spanish from the hands his parents hired on the ranch. Probably the bastard form of Spanish the man had talked about. Mexico's Spanish had diverged pretty sharply in some respects, but the basics were still there.

"Spain is beautiful, and its people are warm," he agreed. Although, Banderas' welcoming attitude may have been more about sticking it to the Americans. Hesitating, he asked. "What do the Germans think of this neutral town?"

"Bah, they are fools! They're attempting to interfere with my duties have been, "he made a noise of disgust. Isshiki wondered if that much was really true. Finishing the picture of the chambermaid, she was easily twenty years older than him, tired and worn from life, but life still sparkled in her eyes and when he turned the picture around for her to see, her mouth fell open.

Technically, if you wanted to get fussy about it, ink painting was for landscapes. Meant to capture flowers, plants, trees, and mountains. Using it on people was different, and he was mixing style and techniques, mostly given his lack of accessibility to the full range of brushes he needed; going for a more realistic impression rather than a stylistic one.

It was a nice painting too, and he bit back a curse as she swooped over to press a kiss against each cheek.

"She says that she thanks you and that you have made her beautiful."

"I only captured what there was to see," he demurred, blushing faintly. "What is her name?" He asked.

"Abiba," he told Isshiki, "she has served me for many years." Isshiki nodded, and as he added the name in Latin letters and kanji, he watched the mayor tilt his head with something that Isshiki would pretend was curiosity but was probably jealousy.

"I would be honored," he said, "to make a portrait of you, Senor Banderas. If you would allow it."

"Hmmm," the mayor considered him, and pretended to think about it. "If it would help you, senor, I would be honored."

He leaned back and decided that it would be best to let the painting dry. It was strange to think that he was so far into the past, capturing the faces and names of people who had likely never even had a picture taken of them. Provided he did make it back to his home, he would be carrying people who had probably been forgotten entirely. For a moment, history bore down on his shoulders.

"It will take time." He told him, "so it must wait for another day."

"Of course, of course," the man beamed. "You have had a hard journey, Senor Agawa, I must insist that you rest." He paced around the room, and Isshiki eyed the various decorations. An interesting mixture of Spanish and Arabic, Catholic and Islamic, and clearly the personal style of the boisterous, intense man. The villa was old, but he couldn't say how old with any sort of confidence. "We must see to your clothes, senor. Is it possible to send for more?"

"No," he tried not to blanche. "No, I have no problems with wearing western clothes. Cleaning this is not simple, and I do not wish for the cloth to be damaged."

"Ha!" The mayor gestured to the woman still admiring her picture. "She knows how to clean anything, señor. If you set them out, your clothes will be cleaned. We will have no trouble. You will look extraordinary in a suit!"

"A suit," he hummed and tried to imagine himself in a 1940's suit. "You are wise, Señor Banderas."

"Thank you! Will you be touring the church? The padre is most interested to meet you."

"I have seen many beautiful cathedrals," Isshiki paused. He had visited the temples in Japan, the various shrines, all of which had more history in a single pane of wood than all of the little churches in Wyoming. North Africa and Spain had just as much history as Japan, and for the time he realized just how much older these places were. "I want to stay in San Lorenzo for some time. I will have time."

They talked for a few minutes longer, and Isshiki excused himself from the conversation citing exhaustion. Which was true. He was tired and now he had no fucking clue how to contact Helen or Miles, or even where the fourth member of their posse was lurking. He'd have to find them and to find them, he'd have to get out and about.

"I will have some clothes sent up, Señor," the mayor concluded graciously.

And he could finally get clean. True to his word, the man had a suit that fit, for the most part, sent up. It was older, clearly well-worn, but Isshiki didn't care. It was clean and comfortable, and as nice as a kimono was, he'd been wearing the same undergarments for almost a week at this point and he needed a scrub. The bath was pretty much heavenly, and he wasn't sure if honestly trusted Abiba with his kimono. Those things were expensive, tended to be delicate, and his parents and his mother would kill him if he damaged anything. Even if he had been clear with his instructions, and how to dry it, he was still a little nervous. Dust, sand, and dirt could easily be scrubbed off, but he had stained his undergarments. Thankfully they'd done their job and he hadn't sweated all over the actual jacket.

Fuck, he couldn't believe he was in the middle of world war 2 and worrying about damage to a kimono. He was in the desert . He was stranded in time, and he was worried about his kimono.

"Get it together," he told his reflection sternly and flopped onto the bed with a sigh. He needed to figure something out. Managing to stay out of the hands of the Americans, and thus out of a prison cell, was only the beginning. He still didn't know why he was here or what he was doing, or even how to get home.

$#$#$#

"Captain," Sergeant Troy was as good at solving headaches as he was at serving them. The woman beside Sergeant Moffitt, with dark hair and eyes, carrying a pack and a disdainful expression, and the man who looked eerily like Private Hitchcock, were clearly a headache.

"This is Dr. Helen Moffitt, and this is Mr. Miles Merry. We picked them up a few days ago while on a routine patrol."

"Really?" He eyed the young Englishwoman, and then Jack Moffit. "Doctor of what?"

"Archaeology," she said, and he tried not to roll his eyes. Of course, it was archaeology. "University of Oxford." She held out a hand, which he shook. Her grip was firm, and her eyes were focused on his. "Specialization in North Africa and the desert."

"Just like your brother?"

"No," her sharp tone sent his eyebrows high. "He studies the living, I study the dead, and the bits they've left behind."

"Interesting." He turned to the Hitchcock look alike. "You?"

"Miles Merry, University of Notre Dame, my specialization is in horticulture and forestry. If you want to get technical, I'm good at finding water and things like that." The man was confident, calm, and didn't seem at all upset by the suspicion in the room. His handshake was just as confident as the doctors.

"What are you two doing in the desert?" The Merry fellow was clearly a civilian, even if he was wearing bits and pieces of borrowed uniforms.

"We were scheduled to look for water," Dr. Moffitt said, "we were supposed to meet up with our other...co-worker," her face compressed. "Compatriot, the third person, when we were waylaid by bandits." At this she shivered, looking properly frightened. "I'm afraid they made off with most of my research material and my tools. Fortunately, I saved my thesis, and they left Mr. Merry half-dead in the sand." Now that she mentioned, the man was holding himself fairly gingerly, as if he'd gotten beaten badly.

"They were rescued by my friend Sheik Ibriham," Sergeant Moffitt put in.

"And we were lucky," Merry tucked his hands into his pockets, looking at perfect ease despite the situation. "Not sure how much longer we would have survived."

"Then it's good you two got rescued, tell me about this third person." He ordered and watched Sergeant Troy's eyes narrow. Clearly, this was new information to him too.

"Well," the woman paused, "we don't actually know much about them, other than the fact that they're a park ranger." Waving a hand awkwardly, she looked to Miles for backup. "It was all arranged beforehand, you see."

"We think something might have happened to them," Miles added.

"Everything went tits up," Dr. Moffitt told him, and Captain Boggs choked back sudden laughter. The rats looked just as surprised, and Miles was grinning. "It's been an awful few days."

"I can imagine," there was a look on Troy's face that told him he needed to have a conversation. "You ought to rest up, Dr. Moffitt, Mr. Merry. We'll see what we can do to recover your lost research. What happens if it falls into German hands?"

"Oh, nothing," she blinked rapidly, "you see, it's not only encoded, but I also have the worst penmanship in England. If they can read and decode it and put the information together, then it would have to be a bloody miracle."

"It's coded?"

"Oh, yes. One of my own making," she smiled, and Boggs relaxed faintly. "They'd have to get us both."

"Alright, Sergeant Moffitt, get your sister settled. Mr. Merry...are you a doctor?"

"Not yet, I was supposed to defend my thesis on watersheds in New York State, but the war," the blond shrugged, "kept getting postponed."

"You help the army find water out here," he promised, "I'll tell them to give it to you. Get going, Sergeant Troy, stick around." The strange troupe filed out of his office, and Sergeant Troy remained with a pensive expression. "What is it?"

"They weren't the only ones we found," Troy said after a moment, Boggs settled back into his chair. "We found a man named Isshiki Agawa."

"A jap?"

"Yes, sir."

"Where the hell is he?"

"San Lorenzo," Troy squinted at him. "We picked him up a few dozen miles away from the Sheiks camp, and he doesn't speak a word of English, only Spanish."

"Spanish?"

"Apparently he was doing a study of Spain at the request of the University of Tokyo." Boggs gaped, "when the war broke out."

"What sort of cockamamie story is that?" He demanded of the commando. "You expect me to believe that?"

"According to our translator, he couldn't safely make it back to Japan and he considers his study an important duty." Troy pulled a folded piece of paper out of his pocket and passed it over. "I slipped this out of his sketchbook."

It was of a landscape Boggs couldn't place, done in a distinctly Japanese style with black ink. "What's this?" He pointed to a corner with unfamiliar characters in three neat lines.

"Apparently it's called a haiku. It's a poem. The mayor recognized the landscape as part of Seville's surrounding hills."

"You got the mayor of San Lorenzo involved?"

"He got himself involved, sir, but the kid was armed with a sword and at no point offered any resistance."

"Which doesn't mean much," Boggs's mind whirled as he tried to think of reasons the Japanese might be sending spies or people to North Africa. "What are your thoughts on it?"

"I'm not sure yet, sir, but I'm sure he doesn't mean anyone any harm."

"You don't think he's a spy?"

"No, sir. He's hiding something, but I don't think he's a spy."

"What do you think he's hiding?"

"The fact that he doesn't want to go back to Japan." Troy was watching him carefully, and Boggs relented and waved for him to continue. "He's a poet, and he's keen on art and good with children. He can defend himself, but I don't think he's a soldier. This is...his version of dodging the draft."

"How sure are you?" Boggs demanded, "There are more lives than just yours at stake, Sergeant Troy."

"Pretty sure, sir, but if not then he can't be hard to track. He's wearing pretty distinctive clothing."

"Right," he huffed, "what about the other two?"

"I'll keep an eye on them."

"Are they spies?"

"I don't think so? That's the sister of Jack Moffitt and you think she could be a spy?"

"She is not a spy, nor is Merry, but I do think they're hiding something."

"You think they're telling the truth?"

"I think they're telling half of it," the commando was one of the smartest and most dangerous men that Boggs had ever met and led. Given the chance, he'd made the man an officer in a minute, and he'd learned to trust his judgment. "They're not a danger to us."

"Then I want you to keep an eye on them, and have you heard anything about this...ranger?"

"No, sir."

"Then we'll keep an ear to the ground because this is too much to be ignored even by the Germans. If they have that ranger, then we'll get them back. As far as you're concerned, until we have another mission for you, your job is to make sure these two aren't spies. Dismissed, Sergeant."

"Yes, sir."

"And don't tip them off."

"Yes, sir." Sergeant Troy saluted and retreated from his office. Blowing out a gust of air, he eyed the drawing in his hand and traced over one of the delicate lines. It was impressive work, and he knew where the artist was and how to track him.

He couldn't get far without someone noticing.