She was on that evening's flight to Frankfurt, Germany.

It had seemed like the only thing to do, and as soon as she hung up with Mike, she had called the airline to make her reservations. She would fly to Frankfurt and then rent a car for the drive to Landstuhl Military Hospital. She had nowhere to stay, no idea if she could even make it inside the hospital, but only one thing mattered: Woody was hurt, and she had to be with him.

Details were sketchy, and even Mike couldn't tell her much more than she had learned from the news. Woody and his crew were returning from a flight and heading for an airfield in Northern Iraq. Ground crew said one of the C-130's four turboprop engines had shut down, and the plane suddenly lost altitude as it came into final approach for landing. Woody had been alive when he was flown to Germany, that much Mike knew, but he had no idea of the extent of his injuries.

She left a hurried message with the morgue that she was taking a few more personal days, threw a few things into a bag, and retrieved her passport from the safe deposit box. As long as she was moving, there was no time to think or feel, but at some point during the long flight while the other passengers dozed in the darkened cabin, she was gripped with the raw terror of not knowing whether Woody lived or died.

She managed to find her way from Frankfurt to Landstuhl despite her outdated German road map. Without a military I.D., getting into the hospital gates proved an ordeal, but she had finally been given a temporary visitor's pass after almost an hour of questions from the American MPs. Her hands were shaking as she sat behind the wheel of her rental car in the hospital parking lot. She had no idea what to expect, what condition he would be in.

She was pointed toward his room by a pleasant Army nurse in green fatigues. Her heart raced as his doorway loomed at the end of the hall. She held her breath and rounded the corner.

He was sitting up in bed in a hospital gown with his head turned toward the window. She had mentally rehearsed this moment. If he was awake, she had a witty remark and some light banter ready, but there would be no tears.

Instead, when the moment came, she could only let out a ragged noise from her throat, and her body shuddered with relief. He turned to her then, and he looked at her as if he could not quite believe she stood there.

They came together in a rush, her coat, her keys, her bag falling in a trail to his bedside. They clung to one another for a long moment, his curved fingers pressing into her back, and her body shook against his.

"I'm okay, Jordan. I'm okay," he repeated, as she cried silently. When she pulled away, he dried her tears and framed her face in his hands. "I'm okay."

"I was terrified..." She ran her fingers down his unshaven face. He had lost weight since she had seen him last, and there were dark hollows in his cheeks. "What happened? Were you hurt?"

"I'm fine. I'm fine. It's okay, Jordan. I was thrown pretty hard in the crash and hit my head. They just wanted to keep me under observation for a couple of days, but I'm fine. Not even a concussion." He gestured over to the copy of Stars and Stripes on his bedside table. "Not everyone was so lucky. The pilot didn't make it."

The newspaper lay open to a brief article about the crash. There was a small photograph in the corner, the kind she had seen in too many obituaries: a stiff, formal portrait of an airman in front of an American flag backdrop.

"Is that him?" she asked quietly. He nodded, and she reached out for the paper.

"Yeah. Capt. Brian Mullen. He lost control of the plane when the one engine shut down. It was a mistake a rookie wouldn't even make," he said with bluntness.

Jordan could feel the sharp tears begin to prick at the back of her eyes, and her hand flew up to her mouth. The dead pilot stared blankly up at her from the photograph, unaware of the fate that awaited him. The last time she had seen him, his eyes had been heavy with sadness as he kissed his four-year-old daughter goodbye with a promise that he would come home soon.

"I remember him," she said through tears. "I was standing right next to him on the flight line the day you left. He had a little girl."

Woody lifted his shoulders. Not quite an indifferent shrug, but something just short. "At least he didn't take anyone else out with him."

Her mouth fell open in surprise. "The man is dead, Woody. How can you be so callous?"

"He was a good man, Jordan, but I wish I could say he was the first good man we've lost in the line of duty. It was pilot error that killed him. Plain and simple. It didn't have to happen." His voice was cold and flat.

She said nothing but stared down at the picture. He reached out for her hand after a moment, but she pulled it away. "I'm sorry," he said quietly. "It's just how we deal with things."

She nodded and then squeezed his hand with sympathy. She had seen this kind of gallows humor and cold flippancy in morgue workers. It was a defense mechanism against the grim realities of their jobs. She could only imagine what horrors Woody had already seen in Iraq.

"God, I missed you, Jordan. You have no idea." His voice ached with heaviness. "I thought about you all the time. When I woke up, when I went to sleep. You were all I could think about when the plane was going down. I thought I'd never see you again."

"Well, here I am." She smiled and ran her fingers through his hair. He caught her hand and brought it to his mouth, where he planted a kiss in her open palm.

"This must be Mrs. Hoyt," a female voice came from behind them. Jordan slid from the bed. A woman in a blue Air Force uniform and lab coat stood in the doorway with Woody's medical file.

"No," Jordan started with an embarrassed smile and offered her hand. "Jordan Cavanaugh. I'm...just a friend from Boston."

"All the way from Boston? That's some friend," the doctor said teasingly to Woody. "Dr. Fields. I'm Capt. Hoyt's doctor. Do you mind if I have a minute to examine him?"

Jordan nodded and excused herself to go in search of coffee. It had been 24 hours since she had slept, and the jet lag was about to overtake her. When she re-entered some time later, Woody sat tying his sneakers on the edge of the bed wearing a USAF sweatsuit. "So, what did the doctor say?"

"I'm being discharged. They're sending me home tomorrow."

She crossed and knelt on the bed next to him. "Are you kidding me? Man, that is great news! Okay, do you know what airline you're going home on? Because I can probably change my reservations. It'll cost an arm and a leg, but I've already racked up my credit card, so what's a few more..."

"Jordan! Jordan! Stop!" he interrupted. She blinked, and he looked at her apologetically. "By home I meant back to my unit in Iraq. I'm not going back to Boston."

"But...you almost died. They can't do that!"

"I basically had nothing more serious than a headache. I'm completely fit for duty. I've got a job to do."

She opened her mouth to protest, but she knew that she couldn't change things. She wouldn't spend the last few hours she had with him in a pointless argument.

"Come on, Jordan. I'm going stir crazy in this place. Let's walk."

XXXXXXXX

The weather was as changeable as her mood. The sun shone brightly, but the spring air was still crisp and damp. It was bittersweet, seeing him again, seeing that he was safe and alive, yet knowing he would get on a plane tomorrow, and she would say goodbye to him for what might be the last time.

They were both distracted, and they walked silently along the path that wound through the hospital grounds until it came to a small memorial garden. He took her hand, and they sat on a bench, huddled against the late afternoon chill, looking straight ahead. Finally, he spoke.

"I wasn't sure what it would be like when we finally saw each other again." He gave her a small sideways glance.

"I know." She nodded slowly. "We've never really...talked."

"Things happened so quickly between us, and then I had to leave. All we had were cards and letters, and it's hard to say what we really want to say in writing."

"True..." How many times had she stared down at the near-blank note cards, unable to get any further than "Dear Woody"?

"I guess what I mean is...I'm not really sure where we stand."

"I'm here, aren't I?"

"I know, but...what as?" He looked over at her, his blue eyes unguarded and questioning. "Are you really 'just a friend from Boston?'"

She watched him there with that look of vulnerability. She had seen it before, as they had whispered intimate words into the morning hours of their first night at the Lucy Carver Inn, and the next night, too, as he sat on their bed with a jar of moonshine. She had known as soon as she entered the room that night with her bag full of ridiculous souvenirs what would happen if she sat there next to him on that bed. She had done it anyway, in spite of, or more certainly, because of that knowledge.

She leaned in and trembled, then, with the same anticipation as she had that night. Her lips met his, softly. He reached up and laced his fingers around at the back of her neck to pull her in to him.

Afterwards, she moved her mouth up to his ear, and he shivered. "Does that answer your question, Woody?"

He smiled and gave out a laugh of happy disbelief. "I can't believe you came, Jordan."

She fell back contentedly against the bench. "Well, it wasn't easy, let me tell you. First off, I had to find out about this from the TV."

"I'm sorry. They'll only release that kind of info to the next of kin. That's Cal, and unfortunately, I have no idea where he is right now."

"Then I practically had to sign over my firstborn to get a lousy visitor's pass in here."

"Well, that's because you don't have a military I.D. If you had a military I.D., you could have breezed right in here, no questions asked."

"Yeah, well, somebody tell me how I can get one of those things," she grumbled absently.

He leaned forward and brushed her long, chestnut hair from her shoulder.

"That's easy," he said. "Marry me."