Chapter 1: Hail the Conquering Hero

"Alex West...what are you doing here?" Marguerite asked, astonished.

"Well, I was heading down the freeway and took a wrong left, traveled 1200 miles, traversed a jungle..."

"THAT'S Alex West?" Roxton asked, not liking the feeling of this. He trusted his wife completely but trusting another man with his wife....even if he had saved her life, he still didn't like it.

Ned lowered his gun, "Mr. West...do you remember me..?"

"Malone isn't it? Edward Malone? We met right after the war ended."

"I'm suprised a war hero like yourself remembered a single interview."

Alex put his gun down, "I've met few other reporters that did their job with such passion...and passionate people make an impression on me.." He said giving Marguerite a wink.

She almost immediately blushed and stood, still holding Will. "Alex, you already know Ned..this is his wife Veronica and their daughter Emilia..."

"Charmed.." Alex said, nodding to Veronica.

"This is Professor George Challenger, our fearless leader.."

"Well, she got the 'Professor' part right..." Challenger said, stepping forward to shake Alex's hand. "Welcome to our little paradise."

"And this," Marguerite continued, moving to stand by Roxton, "Is my husband and our little bundle of....well....bundle, Will."

"Husband? And here I was thinking I could come and rescue you from the first..."

"You knew about Charles?" Roxton asked suspiciously.

Alex sighed, "Yes I knew about Charles. Ever since Marguerite and I had our little...falling out....I tried to help her in the only way I could, by keeping atrack of her and trying to keep her out of trouble...No easy task."

"Oh trust us, we know." Veronica said smirking earning her a dirty look from Marguerite.

"Oh I have no doubt you do. After none of you returned, everyone assumed you had died but about 6 months ago I got word that Charles Wirth was planning an expedition to come and find you. I wanted to meet him in South America to reason with him...man to man you understand but Jenny and Zoe got sick and by the time I got there, he had already left for the heart of the jungle. I asked around and it took a bit of...persuading...but I managed to get a few guides to take me in the same direction. We traveled up the river as far as we could and then headed into the jungle about half a day and found a field at the base of the plateau where Wirth's base camp was. It took a little more persuading...but finally I was able to find out that behind a waterfall another day's journey along the base they had found a series of caves. I headed up with some men and we found an exit..except it was about 200 yards below the top of a cliff so we had to go back and get some climbing equipment and went back up and managed to get to the top. Then it was just a matter of finding you." Alex said, finally finishing.

"And you came all this way just for an old friend?" Roxton asked, still suspicious. At least he told himself it was suspicion and not jealousy he was feeling.

"Marguerite was never 'just' anything." Alex said, looking at Roxton straight in the eye.