Florence didn't remember much about the rescue.
She did remember the shaking, the rumbling of the helicopter as it took off. She was only minutes removed from the hard floor that she had laid on for the past two days, and the sensations of being in a moving aircraft again almost scared her, even though that wasn't supposed to make sense.
She remembered crying when she thought that Sylvester wasn't going to be able to come with her.
She remembered asking if the baby was okay.
Beyond that, the ride back to California was a blur, a hum and a light and people talking in low voices and the feeling of Sylvester's hand in hers.
She could tell when they reached the hospital more from the smell of sterilization than anything else. When she opened her eyes and Sylvester told her what day it was, and what time, she was torn between being shocked and totally believing it.
"Did they say what's wrong with me?"
"You have an infection due to delivering and then remaining in an area that hadn't been sterilized," Sylvester said. "You've been given enough antibiotics to heal a small country, and they're confident that you're on the mend."
"Are the others back?"
"I think so. Cabe and Allie had taken the kids and gone to Colorado to aid in the search efforts, and they're on their way back now. The plane that's taking the others home should have beaten them by several hours."
"That's good."
"Happy very nearly burned the whole forest down trying to save y – us. She and Walter managed to keep it under control. It was pretty interesting actually…"
"Sly, I appreciate the small talk, but I really just…need to know."
A long silence followed. Then Sylvester cleared his throat. "We'll know more about her in the morning," he said, squeezing her hand.
"What do we know now?"
"Almost nothing. Except that the womb is certainly the reason she's alive. The conditions inside it are so similar to the human body, with the exception of no amniotic fluid, of course. The specialists were very pleased with it, said it would certainly make the little one's job easier."
"We need to name her," Florence said.
He nodded. "We hadn't really talked about that."
"There wasn't time."
"Yeah."
"You, uh…" Sylvester licked his lower lip. "You called her something when we were getting into the helicopter. You asked if she was okay, and if she was coming with us. But you used a name. Do you remember what that was?"
Florence bit her lip. She did. Now that he mentioned it, she did. She shifted her weight, flexing her fingers against Sylvester's hand. "I called her Tilly. I don't know why."
"I like it."
"Do you?"
"Yeah. And I looked it up – it's usually short for Matilda, which means 'strong in battle'."
Florence wrinkled her nose. "Now I think it's a cliché and I don't like it."
"Wait, really?"
"No." She gave a little laugh. "I mean, meanings of names aren't my thing but I still…something had me like it."
"What about a middle name? We'd need to offset the Ts."
"Ugh, Sly, I just had a baby, I'm too tired to think about middle names."
He smiled. "I can see you're feeling better."
"A little."
"It's something."
"Yeah."
"The others want to visit you as soon as you feel up to it. Obviously not today since they're still getting home and everything, but…"
"I want to see them." I need to see them. The more awake Florence felt, the more the weight of everything that happened – and everything that would happen going forward – and she needed her friends. The Florence of five years ago would have withdrawn. But she wasn't that Florence anymore.
Bert, Simon's father and the owner of the plane, met them at the airfield.
"We are so sorry about your plane, sir," Paige said as soon as they were all back on solid ground. "We –"
Bert held up a hand. "We are working on finding out who was responsible for the crash. From what I've been told, it was not your team. My understanding may change if the investigation reveals you were at fault, of course, but as of now I'm channeling my anger toward whoever owned those things that knocked you out of the sky."
Paige glanced around, toward the sole building in the immediate vicinity. It appeared relatively deserted. She looked the other way. Just the field, the strip, and the treeline.
"We will be able to provide a detailed incident report of the incident," Walter said. He frowned. "I said incident too much there, didn't I?"
"Where's Cabe? Allie? Where's my baby?" Paige asked. She realized her voice took on a higher pitch when she mentioned Amber. But I thought they were going to meet us here.
"Not here – but don't panic. When the plane didn't land, he immediately went to look for you. Him and Allie and the kid are in Colorado. Or they were. They'll be back in a couple hours." Simon gestured to the building. "There are two apartments in the basement if you want to stay there and wait for them to land."
"We'll take you up on that," Toby said, glancing at Happy. "We're exhausted and could use a few hours of sleep."
"Absolutely," Bert said. "The apartments are small and not fully furnished, but there's a bed and running water and that should do for the short term." He looked at Paige and Walter. "You want the other one?"
Paige nodded. "Thank you."
Bert got them the keys and handed one to Toby and one to Paige. "Just drop them through the mail slot when you leave, okay?"
"Thanks," Paige said. "We appreciate it."
"Thank you," Walter echoed, shaking his head and clearing his throat.
Paige looked at him. "You okay?"
"Yeah. Just…jet lagged."
"It was a two hour flight," Happy said.
"I'm fine."
He seemed fine, at least once they got inside. Paige smiled when he wrapped his arms around her waist and kissed the back of her neck, assuring her, even though she already knew, that Amber would be with them again soon. "I know, Love," she said, hugging him back as best she could when her back was against his chest. "I just miss her so much."
"I know. I do, too. Maybe she will have made progress on her ABCs while we were gone."
Paige sighed inwardly.
She'd called Ralph on the flight home – he already knew she'd been missing, and she learned that when he answered the phone with "God, Mom, I'm going to be gray by the time I'm twenty – five."
"You have good genes. I'm thirty – nine and I don't have gray hair."
"Don't tell me all of that color is natural."
"It is!"
Well, most of it was. There was that one streak, an inch thick, that had basically gone white shortly after Amber was born that Mahkynzeigh – and yes, that was seriously how it was spelled – did an excellent job of matching to the rest of her hair every four weeks. And back to Ralph, Paige supposed for all they knew, Drew could be totally gray by now, at forty – one. She really had no idea.
"Here's an idea," Walter said, bringing her back out of her memories of the phone call, "we trade this mattress for the one in our bedroom."
"You will never let that go, will you?" She asked. "It is not that bad." She climbed onto the bed next to him, fluffing a pillow.
"It is absolutely that bad and you know it. It was almost an improvement to sleep in that plane chair."
Paige grinned, scooting over to his side of the bed and straddling his hips. "We've got a few hours. Now we can distract ourselves like we wanted to in the woods. But this time without worrying." She gave him a flirtatious smile and bent, kissing the side of his jaw before moving to his neck. She could feel his hands come up to rest on her thighs, but otherwise he remained still, staring up at the ceiling. She lifted her head. "You already seem pretty distracted."
"Hmmm?" His eyes flickered over to meet hers. "Oh. Sorry. Come here."
She put her hand on his chest, stopping him from pulling her back down. "Walter, are you feeling okay?"
"Yes. Come here."
"You don't want to. It's okay."
"No, I do. I just need to get out of my head is all."
"If there's another way you'd like to do that, I'm all ears," Paige said. "I just thought you – "
"No," Walter said, "no other way. I promise." He sat up, sliding his arms around her and linking his fingers at the small of her back. "Nothing is better than being with you."
She knew he meant that. But she also knew he was lying to her. It's okay if you're tired or just not feeling it.
She opted to not say that out loud. She was too damn stressed to give him another lesson. "Look," she said, swinging her leg back over and laying on her back next to him, "let's get some rest in before Cabe and Allie bring Amber back. That's what we really came in here to do anyway."
