W.W. –early Sunday morning

"Josh?" Her voice was sleepy but not so emotionally drained as before.

"Shhh, hey. I didn't mean to wake you."

"No," she yawned, "I'm up. It's almost 5:30. Why didn't you come to bed?"

"I was just restless… I'm looking for something, I'm worried I packed it in the car." Josh had his backpack open and was rooting around in it.

"Do you need it now? We'll be back in DC in a few hours. Come lie down with me."

"As tempting as that sounds, love… oh, here it is." He pulled a small package, wrapped in dark blue paper, from the depths of his backpack. "I have something for you."

In a flash she was sitting up, blinking away the sleep and rubbing her fingertips across her face to wake up. "A present? For me? Josh, I didn't get you anything."

"Aside from the best week of my life, you mean?" He grinned at her, and came to sit next to her on the narrow train compartment bunk. "I was going to wait for the right time… but the more I thought about it last night, the more I wanted to do this before we got back to Washington. This, this is for you."

She took the package and saw that it was from the Mikimoto store at Epcot. As she undid the elegant wrapping, she noticed the shy look on Josh's face.

"You really didn't have to…" Her voice trailed off as the wrapping came off to reveal a small box, such as jewelry might come in. No, she thought, he wouldn't have. He couldn't have.

"Open it," he said with a husky voice.

"I can't," she told him honestly. "My hands are shaking."

He put his hand over hers, and gently opened the box. She sucked in her breath and could not exhale. She couldn't even blink.

A while gold band, very slender, with a simple emerald-cut diamond solitaire, shone in the dim light of the compartment. The edges of the band arched up to hold the diamond in a tight embrace, and the whole thing had a delicacy and grace about it that literally left her breathless.

"Okay, I'd be a lot more comfortable here if you could, you know, say something," Josh said quietly, his hands still holding hers around the box.

"I don't know what to say," she told him, slumping against him and hanging on against the whim of capricious gravity. "It's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen, Joshua."

"That's why it reminded me of you." He took the ring carefully out of the box and held it out to her between his fingers. "Donnatella Moss, will you marry me?"

"Ymph!" She said into his chest, turning to hold him in a crushing embrace.

He let his chin rest on the top of her head, letting her hair glide across the stubble on his chin. She smelled wonderful, and felt very good in his arms.

"Was that a yes?" he asked after a moment. "Because if not, I need to just hop out for a second and throw myself under this train."

"Yes," she told him, and dabbed her eyes with the hem of his t-shirt. "Yes, Joshua Lyman, yes I will marry you." She held out her hand, and he slid the ring on to her finger. It was a pretty good fit, which was fortunate given how hard it would be to resize that band.

They both just looked at the stone, glittering on her finger for a while, and he wrapped his arms around her again and held her. After a while she looked at the time and sighed.

"You awful man! You do this before 6:00 in the morning. I have about a hundred to people to call and none of them will be up!"

"Well," he admitted, "your mom said to call any time if the answer was yes. If it was no, wait till your dad has had coffee. Sam said screw the time difference, I have to call him as soon as I'm done talking to my mom."

"You talked to Sam?" She shook her head. "Wait, you talked to my mom?"

W.W.

From "The Capital Times: Wisconsin's Progressive newspaper" and Wisconsin.

Moss – Lyman

Annabella and John Moss of Madison announce the engagement of their daughter, Donnatella Moss, to Joshua Lyman, son of Ruth Lyman of West Palm Beach, Florida.

Miss Moss heads the Presidential Council on International NGO Liaison Activities, based in Oviedo, Florida and is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

Mr. Lyman is the Director of the Leadership Studies program of the School of Political Sciences, University of Central Florida. He is a graduate of Yale University and Harvard Law School.

A February 8th wedding is planned.

W.W.

Author's Endnote: Is Donna expecting? What name did Josh give Leo to take his place? Does the wedding actually come off okay? And what was that all about with Avi Maxwell and the FBI? These are questions for another day, and another story. Book 2: "Code 208," is being rewritten and revised and should post this month. Book 3: "The Myth of Closure" is being researched and drafted now. Look for it in April. Till then, I hope you enjoyed "Magic Kingdom Come."-ReverendKilljoy