The Permanent Residents of Limbo

The sheets were soft against her skin. After days in the jungle and nights on dingy cots, she didn't want to wake up. If she opened her eyes, she might not see a room in the embassy. She would be in the hut on the plantation. Or she would see a bright canopy of green leaves arching far over the dirt floor of the jungle. The beating of bird wings would replace the sound of someone knocking on the door. Or she would wake to hear Clay's screams echoing across the courtyard.

"Hey," he pushed the door open slowly, "are you awake?"

"Hey." She forced her eyes open. Harm leaned against the doorjamb, his good arm propped against the frame. "How's your wrist?"

He glanced down at the cast. She had pleaded with him to get a colored cast, but he had insisted on plain white muttering about job interviews and potential employers not taking him seriously. "Broken." He raised his eyes to study her. "How are your ribs?"

She cocked at an eyebrow. "Broken."

He limped into the room and eased himself on the side of her bed. His good hand found hers and wove her fingers between his.

"I never did thank you," she murmured between careful breaths.

"For what?" Mimicking her earlier expression, he raised an eyebrow. "For rescuing you? For quitting the Navy to do it? Or maybe you wanted to thank me for crashing you into a mountainside?"

"Yes." Her answer was simple. She didn't want another misunderstanding between them. Their future was haunted by more ghosts than she could count. "For all of the above," she paused. "Except for the crash."

"You're welcome."

Her fingers flexed in his, squeezing once before pulling away. They retreated to the safety of her abdomen. His hand moved back to his thigh. She wanted to sigh. Why was it always so hard? For days, they had stumbled through the jungle together. They had survived only to recover to face awkward pauses more daunting than being lost in a foreign country.

As if he could sense her discomfort, or maybe he could feel it shimmering in the air, he smiled. "Anyway, you should really thank me for all I did to get here. Or maybe congratulate me."

"You resigned," she pointed out the one fact she already knew, wondering what merited congratulations. "I assume you got on a plane?" An eyebrow rose to punctuate her question.

"Funny." He shifted on the bed, bringing his leg up so his knee bumped hers. "No. That's not what I was talking about, wiseass. I had to pretend marry a CIA agent."

"Excuse me?" Both eyebrows tracked a path high on her forehead. Although she tried to keep her voice light, shock rolled over her in a cold sick wave.

"Well, you got to do it," he pointed out logically. "I didn't want to be the only kid on the block without a fake marriage to a CIA agent."

"I can only hope it was a woman," she said solemnly. Her brain scrambled for answers. She didn't want to be ungrateful. But she couldn't help but wonder what it meant. The doubts, the little thoughts of what if, began to resurface. Mercilessly, she told herself to shut up.

"Funny you should say that." He launched into the story of his marriage ceremony with a detailed description of the vows. She laughed as much as her ribs would allow her, filling in his pauses with appreciative, perfunctory giggles.

When he finished, she let her eyelids droop and her breathing slow. He waited until she drifted off and then crept out the room. She could feel the bed shift under his weight and heard the door click softly behind him. Her eyes opened again and she stared at the door for a very long time.