Mina was awoken by someone softly calling her name and tapping her shoulder. She slowly opened her eyes and blinked from the sunlight coming through her window. She focused on the face in front of her to see her brother. He looked concerned.

"Mina, what happened?" he asked, gesturing to the piles of clothing covering her bedroom floor.

Mina moved her head around in an effort to ease the stiffness. She looked down to see that her husband was still unconscious on her lap. She gently moved his head to rest on one of the piles of clothing and reached out her hand for Caleb to grab. He took a hold of it and pulled Mina to her feet. Mina reached out and grabbed the bottle that sat on top of her dresser and showed it to her brother.

"It seems my husband was determined to drown his sorrows. I hid this from him when he first came home. I guess he found it."

Mina bent down and placed her arms underneath her husbands in an attempt to get him upright.

"Help me get him on the bed."

Caleb moved to help her and together they were able to move Kolya from the floor to Mina's bed. He looked around the room, shaking his head at the mess. Mina began to pick up her clothing, sorting it into various piles on top of her dresser.

"Not that I'm not grateful, but why are you here?"

Caleb glanced down at the sleeping man on the bed and gestured to the living space. Mina followed him out of her bedroom, closing the door behind her.

"You didn't show up in the infirmary, which concerned Corric. He sent me to find you."

Mina swore under her breath, looking at her kitchen clock and noticing the time.

"I didn't know it was so late."

She walked over to the table by the front door and grabbed her radio. She pushed in the frequency for the infirmary and waited for Corric to respond.

"Corric Indo here," his voice came from the radio in her hand.

"Corric this is Mina. I'm so sorry that I'm not there. I will be there as soon as I can."

A moment of silence caused Mina to panic slightly. Had she lost her position because she had overslept? Corric's voice coming through the radio again brought a gasp of relief from her chest.

"Come in when you are ready. I'm glad you are alright. I'll see you soon."

Mina placed her radio back on the table and headed back for her bedroom.

"Thank you for coming to get me Caleb. I'm going to get ready and do a bit of cleaning up before I leave."

"Do you want me to help?" Caleb asked as he looked around the house, noticing the entire mess outside of her bedroom.

Mina shook her head, picking up random items as she walked.

"You have other things to do. I'll see you later."

Caleb started towards the door but stopped when Mina spoke again.

"Please don't tell Thali about this. She has faith that he can change and make me happy. I don't want to dash the only hope that she has right now."

Caleb didn't respond but gave his sister a grim look before exiting her home. Mina made her way to her room to try and find something to wear out of the piles she had started. Careful not to wake her husband, she quickly got dressed. She picked up the remaining clothes on the floor, adding them to the piles. As she moved around her room, she was surprised that she hadn't come across her wedding dress yet. This confused her, as it was one of the things that had been on top of the liquor bottle.

As she glanced around her now much cleaner bedroom, she noticed a bit of white sticking out from underneath the end of her bed. She bent down and pulled the article in question, holding it up for inspection. It seemed that her dress was the only thing that hadn't been tossed haphazardly in her husband's search for the bottle of liquor. Mina carefully folded the dress and placed it back in the drawer. She wondered why he had spared the dress but nothing else in their home.

Choosing to not think on it any further right now, she walked back out of her room and began picking more things up in the living room. After she was satisfied with what she could do in a short time, she left her home to go to the infirmary. When she arrived, she was glad to find it empty. The entire time she had been worried that Corric was swamped with patients and that she had abandoned him to deal with them without her. Corric must have heard her enter the room, as he peered out of his office when she entered.

"Ah Mina, good you're here."

Mina felt embarrassed that she was late. It was a first for her. She was never late for anything.

"I'm terribly sorry Corric. I had some trouble last night with my husband and was dealing with the aftermath this morning."

Corric looked concerned and similar to what Thali had done the day before, he scanned her for visible injuries. Mina sighed and crossed her arms over her chest defensively.

"No he didn't hurt me. He hasn't hurt me at all. I wish everyone would stop jumping to that conclusion."

Corric's expression changed to one of pity.

"It's a valid concern Mina. Your husband is going through a lot and the anger I saw from him while he was here was concerning. I don't think he would intentionally hurt you, but something could still happen."

Mina knew Corric was right. The first time that her husband had lashed out in anger, she had been terrified that he would turn his anger on her. So far he hadn't, but it could still happen. She wanted to think that it wouldn't. She hoped that whatever had been sparked between them before the horrible mission that had started all this would keep him from lashing out at her.

Thali Delaine liked to think that she was a rational person. That ideal disappeared the moment someone she cared about was being hurt. Despite what he had been asked, Caleb told her what had happened. During her break, Thali stormed across the village in the direction of the Kolya home, determined to give her sister's husband a piece of her mind. When she arrived at the house, she surged forward, pounding on the door. The door opened to reveal a very irritated and tired looking Commander Kolya.

"Thali? What do you want?"

Thali barged past the man and look around the space. Even though it had been mostly cleaned up, she could tell that the house had been trashed. Some of the furniture was still askew and things were missing that could have been broken. She whirled around to face Kolya, her anger boiling to the surface.

"Have you no shame? Why did you feel the need to trash the house? My sister has done nothing but take care of you since you returned and this is how you repay her?"

Kolya seemed surprised at the anger exploding out of the young woman in front of him.

"I never thought highly of this marriage arrangement, but she was determined to make it work. At some point, she even seemed like she could be happy. But all of that disappeared the moment you stepped through the gate."

Thali was nearly seething, more so at the fact that he wasn't responding in any way to her yelling.

"Do you have nothing to say? Apparently lately all you do is yell and destroy things. I won't let you destroy my sister. You don't deserve her, you never have."

Thali didn't give Kolya a chance to respond before she stormed back out through the door and back in the direction she had come from. Kolya stood in his doorway watching her walk off, stunned by her words.

Mina walked slowly down the path towards her home. She had stayed late to help Corric in an effort to make up for her being so late. In reality, she dreaded going home. She was afraid to see what state her husband would be in after waking from his alcohol induced slumber. When she had told Corric what happened, he told her that even though it wasn't good for the healing process, Kolya would be fine once her sobered up.

Mina walked up her steps and walked into the house. It was dark apart from the small amount of light that seeped out from under her husband's bedroom door. Wanting to avoid the situation all together, Mina walked straight to her room and closed the door. Turning on the lamp in her room, she was taken aback by the sight before her. The piles of clothing that she had left on top of her dresser were gone. She opened the drawers to find all of her clothing neatly put away. She wasn't sure what to make of this development. She decided to leave it alone for now and changed into her sleeping clothes, collapsing on her bed.

Staring up at the ceiling in the dark, Mina could swear she heard music coming from the other room. It sounded like the song that she had danced to with her husband that played from his mother's music box. She sat up in bed and listened more carefully. Now she was certain that she was hearing correctly. Swinging her legs over the side of her bed, she padded to her door and opened it slowly, trying to avoid making a sound. Stepping softly, Mina moved to stand outside the other bedroom door. The sound of the music floated out from under the door, bringing the memory of her dance to her mind.

Even though they hadn't been the best of times, they were still better than what was happening now. At least then, her husband showed more than just anger. When the song came to an end, Mina realized that tears had begun to stream down her face. Sniffing, she wiped them from her cheeks and returned to her room. Lying down on her bed, she thought back to all the positive memories she had experienced in the past few months. She hoped that they wouldn't be the only ones she would have.

A/N: Short filler chapter to move things along. Thank you to those that review. I greatly appreciate it! Your words keep me going! Things will be picking up quite soon, so stay tuned. I hope you enjoyed this chapter and please review!